Iran says Britain to pay 400 million-pound debt soon

Britain will soon repay a decades-old debt of over 400 million pounds ($527 million) to Iran, the Iranian ambassador said on Friday, adding that the payment was not linked to the case of a British-Iranian charity worker jailed in Iran.

EBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) - The Iranian ambassador said on Friday that Britain will soon repay a decades-old debt of over 400 million pounds ($527 million) to Iran but denied the payment was linked to the case of a British-Iranian charity worker jailed in Iran.

“An outstanding debt owed by the U.K. to Tehran will be transferred to the Central Bank of Iran in the coming days. The payment ... has nothing to do with Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case,” Hamid Baeedinejad wrote on his Telegram channel.

Nazanine Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38, was arrested at an airport on April 3, 2016, upon returning from a vacation visiting her family.

Her two-year-old daughter Gabriella was also banned from leaving the country to be with her father and is looked after by family in Iran.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, sentenced to five years in prison on "secret charges," but Iranian media reports she was convinced of "soft toppling" of the Iranian government.

The charity worker has maintained her innocence. Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson have raised her case with their counterparts in Iran.

Britain’s debt to Iran dates from the 1970s, before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 toppled the U.S.-backed Shah. Iran paid up front for 1,750 Chieftain tanks and other vehicles, but most were never delivered because of sanctions imposed on Tehran after the revolution.

A British government official, who asked not to be named, said on Friday it was “speculation” that the money would be paid.

The Treasury said in a statement the money was frozen by a British court and could not be paid because of sanctions.

The Telegraph newspaper reported on Thursday that Britain was working on a plan to pay Iran the debt, as part of efforts to secure the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

On Thursday, British Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman denied there was any link between the debt and the charity worker’s case. Tehran also dismissed the Telegraph report.