DUBAI: British foreign minister Boris Johnson held talks on Saturday with his Iranian counterpart and other officials, during a visit to Iran where he is expected to seek the release of jailed Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
The visit is only the third by a British foreign minister to Iran in the last 14 years, and takes place against a complex backdrop of historical, regional and bilateral tensions.
In a meeting with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Johnson called for expanding bilateral cooperation and stressed Britain’s support for Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported.
IRNA did not refer to any talks about aid worker Zaghari-Ratcliffe, but Johnson said in an earlier statement: “I will stress my grave concerns about our dual national consular cases and press for their release where there are humanitarian grounds to do so.”
Johnson also met Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and parliament speaker Ali Larijani during the first day of his two-day visit, IRNA said.
Johnson has vowed to leave “no stone unturned” in Britain’s efforts to free Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, who was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted by an Iranian court of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment. She denies the charges.— Reuters
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