Dominic Dudley

The U.K. government is facing calls from across the political arena to settle a 42-year-old £400 million ($537 million) debt it owes to Iran, or at least explain why it can’t.

In debates in both chambers of parliament this week, M.P.s and peers from all parties called on the government to pay the debt as a necessary step in securing the release of British citizens held in Iran, including Anoosheh Ashoori, Mehran Raoof, Morad Tahbaz and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

The matter has risen up the political agenda thanks to the relentless campaigning efforts of the families of those detained in Iran, the most high-profile of which has been Richard Ratcliffe, who recently ended a 21-day hunger strike outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in central London.

Ratcliffe’s wife Nazanin has already served a five-year sentence for spying and has been handed a further one-year sentence for propaganda. She denies all charges and her family believes she is being held as leverage by the Tehran government, which wants the £400 million to be repaid.

The debt stems from orders for around 1,500 Challenger tanks and other armoured vehicles placed by the Shah of Iran’s government in the early 1970s. The money was paid in advance, but most of the tanks were never delivered because the U.K. cancelled the contract after the 1979 revolution. An International Chamber of Commerce arbitration panel ruled in May 2001 that the U.K. was liable to pay Iran. A Dutch court later largely upheld that finding, but some legal proceedings continue in the U.K. courts.

The U.K. government has said it is doing what it can to resolve the debt situation and end the ordeal of the detainees, but insists the two issues should not be linked, while also failing to explain why it has been unable to settle the debt.

In a Westminster Hall debate on November 16, junior Foreign Office minister James Cleverly said “The U.K. government recognises we have a duty to legally repay this debt and we continue to explore all legal options to resolve this 40-year-old case.”

However, he did not explain what was preventing the government from following those words with actions.

“The comments were more or less what we expected and have been hearing for the past year,” said Elika Ashoori, whose father Anoosheh Ashoori has been detained in Iran since August 2017. He was convicted of cooperating with Israel (a charge he denies) and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.

Anoosheh Ashoori pictured with his daughter Elika prior to his arrest in Iran in August, 2017

Elika Ashoori

In the same debate on November 16, the Ratcliffe family’s MP Tulip Siddiq indicated her patience with the government was running thin.

“I have become increasingly frustrated that ministers are ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the fact that [Nazanin’s] case is now linked to the £400 million that this country owes Iran,” she said. “When Nazanin was captured and put in solitary confinement in Evin prison, she was told by prison guards that the reason she was being held was because of our failure to pay this historic debt… What frustrates me so much is that every time I speak to the government, they seem to bury their head in the sand and deny that there is a link.”

Cross-party support

Siddiq is a member of the opposition Labour Party, but her position is shared by numerous others across party lines. A former Conservative Party foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt suggested that, although there may be difficulties in paying Iran due to sanctions on the country, those issues were not insurmountable – alluding to an episode in 2016 when the U.S. paid a debt of $400 million to Iran for another cancelled arms deal; on the same day four American prisoners were released by Iran.

“It is not easy to do, but with political will it can be done,” said Hunt. “The Americans managed it and we can most certainly manage it. If necessary, by getting an RAF plane to fly gold over to Tehran. There are lots of ways of doing it.”

Others highlighted how other countries had also managed to secure the release of their citizens from Iranian jails. Another former Conservative government minister Iain Duncan Smith asked “How is it that the United States, Australia, France and Germany have all now successfully negotiated the release of their citizens who were arbitrarily detained in Iran, yet we have made no progress?”

‘Stonewalling’ minister

A day earlier, in the House of Lords, junior foreign office minister Zac Goldsmith came under sustained questioning about the issue, with one Conservative peer, Lord Cormack, accusing him of “stonewalling” with his answers.

Goldsmith said the government wanted to avoid linking Nazanin’s case with the debt. “We are actively exploring the options to resolve this case, but it is not helpful in any way to connect wider bilateral issues with those arbitrarily detained in Iran,” he said.

However, government ministers have effectively made that link themselves. Goldsmith said in the same debate: “Were the government to pay hundreds of millions of pounds to the Iranian government, that would undoubtedly be seen as payment for a hostage situation.”

Prime minister Boris Johnson also indirectly made that link, when he or his allies briefed newspapers in 2017 (when he was foreign secretary) that the government was planning to transfer the funds to Tehran. That came soon after Johnson had told a parliamentary committee that Nazanin had been in Iran to teach journalism – her family insists she was only there on holiday to visit her parents and say Johnson’s comments were used by the Iranian authorities to justify the second case against her.

Families of those detained say they were told in the past that the reason the debt had not been repaid was because of international sanctions on Iran, which made transferring the funds impossible. However, U.S. secretary of state Anthony Blinken told the B.B.C. earlier this year that the issue was “a sovereign decision for the United Kingdom" and the London government appears to have now stepped back from its previous position on this.

When asked by Conservative Party grandee Lord Lamont (who is also the U.K. trade envoy to Iran) if U.S. sanctions were the reason for the delay in repaying the debt, Goldsmith replied “I am absolutely certain that the premise of the noble lord’s question and the assumption within it is not correct.”

While the government has created confusion on its stance, others have taken a clearer view. “If this was ransom money, heart-breaking though it is, we should not pay it because it would only lead to more hostages being taken. But this is not ransom money. It is a historic debt that we owe to Iran. It shouldn’t be linked to this case but it is and that’s why we should pay this debt,” said Hunt, in the debate on November 16.

Discontent in the ranks

To some vocal signs of disappointment from MPs present, Siddiq ended the debate on November 16 by quoting a statement from Richard Ratcliffe, who had sat quietly at the back of the room to listen to the debate: “The prime minister did not visit me on hunger strike though he did pass me one day without coming over.” Downing Street declined to comment on why Johnson had not visited Ratcliffe during his hunger strike.

There had been other murmurings of discontent in the Lords the day before, with at least one peer heard muttering “absolutely disgraceful” to one of Goldsmith’s explanations of the government’s position.

With few friends on this issue in either chamber, the families of those detained are hoping the government will soon be forced to change its approach.

“The dissatisfied murmurs in the debate hall yesterday when Mr Cleverly continued to recycle the same words over again was so reassuring, knowing so many from all parties are also getting frustrated with the U.K.’s disregard of acknowledging a basic moral duty to their citizens,” said Elika Ashoori. “We can only hope that this means there’s enough pressure on the government to do the right thing and stop procrastinating.”

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