Iran Says U.S. Sanctions Halted Deal to Free U.K. Prisoners

(Bloomberg) -- Iran said U.S. sanctions blocked a proposed deal with the U.K. earlier this year to try to secure the release of dual nationals detained by the Islamic Republic.

The Iranian ambassador to London, Mohsen Baharvand, told reporters at a briefing Friday that Iran “had a deal and signed it but then two days after signature of that deal, the U.K. government said they cannot implement it because of U.S. sanctions.”

He didn’t give details of when the agreement was struck or how it had been blocked, but said the intention was to help Iran’s government make a case to the judiciary for the release on humanitarian grounds of British-Iranian dual nationals. 

Baharvand said a delegation from the U.K. visited Tehran last week, where these cases, including that of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, were discussed.

In the U.K., the fate of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who’s been detained in Iran since 2016, has been linked to an unpaid 400 million pound debt from an abandoned defense contract dating back decades. Iran has denied any such connection.

The debt was also discussed in last week’s visit and talks over how that money can be paid back, and whether a bank can be used to transfer the funds, are ongoing, Baharvand said.

Asked to comment on the purported prisoner-release deal, the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office didn’t address the issue, referring only to the debt in an emailed reply. 

“We continue to explore options to resolve this 40-year-old case and will not comment further as discussions are ongoing,” it said in a statement.   

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