EX-foreign minister insists UK should pay Iranian debt
Former British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has urged the government in London to expedite efforts to settle an outstanding debt to Iran, saying the issue is affecting the relations between the two countries.
Speaking to the BBC Radio on Thursday, Hunt said that the payment of a £400m debt that Britain owes to Iran over an unfulfilled military equipment contract dating back to 1970s was not equivalent of a ransom as described by some anti-Iran figures in Britain.
Instead, Hunt said, that the failure to pay the long-overdue debt would damage relations between Iran and the UK.
“... this is not ransom money. This is a debt. An international court has said so. The defense secretary has said so. We should pay it because it is an irritant to relations,” said the Conservative member of the British parliament.
The comments come just before a planned meeting in London between UK Foreign Office officials and Iranian deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani as the two sides prepare to return to talks aimed at reviving a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
They also came on the 19th day of a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office by Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British journalist who has been sentenced to prison in Iran over involvement in anti-government activities.
Ratcliffe has been pressing the UK government authorities to pay the outstanding debt to Iran as he believes the case can help the release of his wife from Iranian jail.
Hunt said the UK government could use the opportunity of Bagheri’s visit to London to secure the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe as part of broader discussions on bilateral issues between the two countries.
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