Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe faces new charge in Iran.

inferno said:
What exactly was her job? Seems very murky.

Im very sorry for her but I don’t really see how we can give them back 400 million gbp. If you want to go to iran give up your Iranian passport so you will be protected.
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Iran doesn't allow you to give it up that easily, you'd need approval from foreign minister or president (those actual individuals need to sign it, not their offices or the embassy).
 
Robbo said:
I have seen this in the news again with Richard Ratcliffe protesting via hunger strike.

Why aren't our government making more of an effort to sort things out? They could get her released if they really wanted, surely? The thought that Iran can detain a British Citizen for no good reason/on false charges is worrying.

Now I haven't read about this a great deal, but reading between the lines, was Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe quite possibly up to no good?
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I don’t understand this view that they could get her out. How could they? If Iran don’t want to let her go then what can anyone do about it?
 
Ahleckz said:
I don’t understand this view that they could get her out. How could they? If Iran don’t want to let her go then what can anyone do about it?
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Iran wants to let her go, there's a price for it though. This happens again and again with foreign national locked up on bogus charges, as soon as the other country decides to pay their debts they will be released.

Remember Jason Rezaian. Dual national American-Iranian journalist locked up on similar charges alongside three other Americans. US negotiated their release and the price was unfreezing $1.7 billion assets, which the US did and he was released on the same day.
 
HACO said:
Iran wants to let her go, there's a price for it though. This happens again and again with foreign national locked up on bogus charges, as soon as the other country decides to pay their debts they will be released.

Remember Jason Rezaian. Dual national American-Iranian journalist locked up on similar charges alongside three other Americans. US negotiated their release and the price was unfreezing $1.7 billion assets, which the US did and he was released on the same day.
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I guess I read it that we could force Iran to release her without paying this debt/ransom. Perhaps too early in the morning!

I certainly don’t think there’s any possibility we will be paying this money, even if it is fairly owed. It’ll be a terrible move politically and achieve absolutely nothing (beyond the freeing of one person).
 
Ahleckz said:
I guess I read it that we could force Iran to release her without paying this debt/ransom. Perhaps too early in the morning!

I certainly don’t think there’s any possibility we will be paying this money, even if it is fairly owed. It’ll be a terrible move politically and achieve absolutely nothing (beyond the freeing of one person).
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And if that one person was your partner? We owe the money and it is trivial compared to one life.
 
andicole0 said:
And if that one person was your partner? We owe the money and it is trivial compared to one life.
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I don’t think it’s a trivial amount. There are a lot more things that £400 million could pay for which would help a lot more people than just one family.
 
Ahleckz said:
I don’t think it’s a trivial amount. There are a lot more things that £400 million could pay for which would help a lot more people than just one family.
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Looking at the bigger picture and comparing it to the cost of Covid it is trivial. It is also not ours, it was payment for goods not supplied.
 
Ahleckz said:
I guess I read it that we could force Iran to release her without paying this debt/ransom. Perhaps too early in the morning!

I certainly don’t think there’s any possibility we will be paying this money, even if it is fairly owed. It’ll be a terrible move politically and achieve absolutely nothing (beyond the freeing of one person).
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Ahleckz said:
I don’t think it’s a trivial amount. There are a lot more things that £400 million could pay for which would help a lot more people than just one family.
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First of all it's not one person, there are multiple British citizens who are locked up and will be released if we pay the debt.

Second, paying or not paying this debt does not affect public finances in any way. This money is not and cannot be appropriated for public spending as it was a payment for military equipment and these accounts are entirely separate. It's sitting there doing nothing.
 
Politically though, it’ll go down awfully. No amount of spin will stop the headlines “British government pays half a billion to Totalitarian dictatorship”, “UK government sends the wages of 16,000 nurses to IRAN”.

If it’s right, or if it’s not, doesn’t really matter. This is realpolitik, and it’s just not feasible that this debt will be paid.
 
Ahleckz said:
Politically though, it’ll go down awfully. No amount of spin will stop the headlines “British government pays half a billion to Totalitarian dictatorship”, “UK government sends the wages of 16,000 nurses to IRAN”.

If it’s right, or if it’s not, doesn’t really matter. This is realpolitik, and it’s just not feasible that this debt will be paid.
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Politically, it's gone down (and continuing to go down) pretty awfully for our esteemed prime minister, who promised he would pay the debt when he was Foreign Secretary, and thus further entrenched the Iranian view that they can hold out for it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/14/observer-view-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-iran
 
Ahleckz said:
Politically though, it’ll go down awfully. No amount of spin will stop the headlines “British government pays half a billion to Totalitarian dictatorship”, “UK government sends the wages of 16,000 nurses to IRAN”.

If it’s right, or if it’s not, doesn’t really matter. This is realpolitik, and it’s just not feasible that this debt will be paid.
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Not convinced the money is being used as such as I suspect the IMF has it ringfenced.
 
It would appear that International sanctions legally prevent the UK from paying the debt, but there also seems to be much more to this than at first sight. Nazanin is not the only dual citizenship person being held.
 
If the US managed it, why can't we? Yes, sanctions prevent us from paying the money, this can't be a surprise to the Gov so what has/is happening in the mean time?
We hear a lot about Brexit negotiations but little about Iran situation aside from platitudes. It's gone from not admitting the link, waiting out the jail sentence (simply more added on so that's a failure) to there is a link, to now we can't pay.

Heard something about we came close to a deal for repayment but US balked at the last minute. Jesus we look weak, give up on the trade deal Boris, not going to happen for years, work with the EU (like we did when Trump/US wanted to shut down Iran negotiations) and get this done. Though probably no friends left in the EU for this either.
 
We need to pay the money back.

Like the US would let red tape stop them from paying out money for their hostages.
 
OCUK: We need to pay the Iranian Ayatollahs we owe them money. Israel: Come on, please. look the other way, WE can sort `em out, FOC ;)

The usual crew denigrate the UK in favour of a cave dwelling regime. Bring back the Shah!
 
Chris Wilson said:
OCUK: We need to pay the Iranian Ayatollahs we owe them money. Israel: Come on, please. look the other way, WE can sort `em out, FOC ;)

The usual crew denigrate the UK in favour of a cave dwelling regime. Bring back the Shah!
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The "usual crew" for Chris being 3 former Foreign secretaries from across the floor, and an international court.

:)
 
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