Shabtabnews In this dark night, I have lost my way – Arise from a corner, oh you the star of guidance.
RFL/RE – British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has arrived in Iran to lobby for the release of an Iranian-British woman jailed in Tehran.
Johnson arrived on December 9 for talks with his counterpart, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, about imprisoned British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is already serving a five-year prison sentence for allegedly planning the “soft toppling” of Iran’s government while traveling there with her toddler daughter, faces fresh propaganda charges that could add 16 years to her prison term.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity that operates independently from the Reuters news agency. She denies the charges against her and insists she was in Iran on a personal visit. The Thomson Reuters Foundation has also said she was not on assignment while in Iran.
Johnson faced calls to resign last month after saying in Parliament that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been “training journalists” in Iran prior to her arrest last year, comments that critics said could lead to an extended prison sentence for her.
Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
He later apologized and said Zaghari-Ratcliffe was not in Iran in a professional capacity.
Iranian officials have cited Johnson’s statement in their effort to bring new charges against Zaghari-Ratcliffe. She is scheduled to appear before an Iranian court on December 10 to face charges of spreading antigovernment propaganda in Iran.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, has said he believes his wife was about to be released before Johnson’s statement.
The trip to Iran will be Johnson’s first and only the third by a British foreign secretary since 2003. The last such visit happened in 2015.
A British Foreign Office spokesman said Johnson and Zarif are expected to discuss “a wide range of issues from the bilateral relationship to regional security.”
The visit comes as the United States has cast doubt on the future of a landmark 2015 deal between Tehran and leading world powers under which Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP
