The UK on Thursday defended the payment of almost £400 million ($525m) to Iran after former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo accused Britain of paying “blood money” to secure the release of two detainees.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office insisted the payment to settle an outstanding military debt was “not contingent” on the release of British-Iranian dual citizens Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori.
It came after Mr Pompeo, who served under former president Donald Trump and is a long-standing critic of Iran, accused Britain of “rewarding hostage-takers” and said the money would be used to terrorise the UK, US and Israel.
“The UK priced taking and holding its citizens hostage at $530 million,” he said.
Mr Johnson’s spokesman said the payments were made “in parallel” with the release of the two detainees, to cover an order for Chieftain tanks that was cancelled following the Iranian revolution in 1979.
“We have resolved that debt as we always said we would. The UK has never accepted our nationals being used as political leverage for any purpose,” the spokesman said.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori have returned to the UK after spending years in Iranian prisons on charges of espionage, which Britain described as unjustified.
A third detainee, Morad Tahbaz, was released from prison on furlough and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said diplomatic efforts to secure his departure from Iran should continue.
She attributed the release of the three prisoners to “tenacious and creative British diplomacy” and said the money paid to Iran would be ring-fenced solely for the purchase of humanitarian goods.
Another minister in the Foreign Office, James Cleverly, said officials had to work around international and British sanctions against Iran to come up with a deal to solve the dispute.
The debt was owed by the Ministry of Defence-owned company International Military Services Limited, which had signed a contract with the shah of Iran’s government before he was overthrown.
Iran had made initial payments to Britain but the contract was not fulfilled once the shah was toppled and the revolutionary government took power.
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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe reunited with her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and their daughter, Gabriella, after being held for six years in Iran. Photo: @TulipSiddiq via Twitter -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, centre, with their families. Photo: @lilika49 via Twitter -
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her daughter at RAF Brize Norton airbase. EPA -
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her daughter Gabriella, husband Richard and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss at RAF Brize Norton. EPA -
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were released in March 2022. Reuters -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori with the cabin crew in Brize Norton. Reuters -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori as their plane flies over London. Reuters -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe sits in a plane en route to London after taking off from Teheran. Reuters -
Mr Ashoori gestures as he sits in the plane heading to London. Reuters -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Tehran in April 2016 as she prepared to fly back to the UK, having taken her daughter Gabriella to see relatives. AFP -
She was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government and sentenced to five years in jail, spending four years in Tehran’s Evin Prison and one under house arrest. Photo: Tulip Siddiq / Twitter -
Richard Ratcliffe with daughter Gabriella outside their house in London on Wednesday. AFP -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori arrive in Oman en route to the UK. Photo: @badralbusaidi / Twitter -
Mr Ratcliffe went on a hunger strike in October 2021 in protest at the UK government’s failure to secure his wife's release. AFP -
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe boards a plane as she prepares to leave Tehran. Reuters -
Mr Ratcliffe told the media that the family plan to find solace elsewhere for a few days. Reuters -
Gabriella was not yet two when her mother was arrested. Photo: Tulip Siddiq / Twitter
