Iran: Boris Johnson considers debt repayment "worth considering"

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson (archive picture): Great Britain owes Iran 400 million pounds for undelivered tanks

Photo: House Of Commons / imago images / ZUMA Press

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson thinks it is “worth considering” to pay off hundreds of millions of pounds of historical debt to Iran in “boxes of cash” in order to circumvent sanctions against the country. The conservative politician said on Wednesday before a committee in the British House of Commons. Specifically, it is about 400 million pounds (about 468 million euros) from a tank order from the Shah, which was paid for, but never delivered after his fall in 1979.

The Iranian side has linked the outstanding debt to the case of the Iranian-British dual nation Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been detained in Iran since 2016 on charges of espionage, among other things. The government in London considers the allegations against the former project manager of the Thomson Reuters Foundation to be constructed. Her husband Richard Ratcliffe had just ended a three-week hunger strike outside the State Department in London a few days ago to get the government to act.

So far, all diplomatic efforts to obtain the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other British-Iranian dual states have failed.

Your supporters hope that paying the debt will solve the problem.

But international sanctions against Iran make a transaction more difficult.

In addition, the government in London emphasizes that the two matters must not be mixed up.

ime / dpa