UK officials travel to Iran to discuss $530.8m debt 

UK officials headed over to Tehran last week to discuss the repayment of £400 million ($530.8 million) owed to Iran, The New Arab reported.

The debt, which has stood for over 40 years, is for money handed over by Iran to the UK for some military tanks that were never delivered, and non-repayment of the money has been a point of tension for some years.

UK officials discussed legal channels as to how to repay the debt whilst getting around the economic sanctions slapped on Iran.

The US has been approached and asked if a letter could be provided stating the money will not be sanctioned if the UK repays the money owed.

Tehran has been determined Iran will be repaid by the UK, with an anonymous source cited by Iranian state TV that the country could even offer the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other prisoners if the UK government hands over the money.

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Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Mohsen Baharvand told the Guardian: “We wanted to use that deal to ask our people that we are seeing a good sign from the UK and then that gives us a possibility to expedite our efforts to help the dual nationals and things like that.”

“Then we had a deal. We signed it but two days after the signature of that deal the UK government said they could not implement it because of US sanctions.”

The UK is reportedly considering trying to get around the sanctions by offering the money as aid, however, Baharvand was adamant the money should be repaid as debt, and not aid.

He said: “It’s not aid. Our money is here and we want our money. That is very simple. We want to receive our money.”

“We are not insisting on interest. Otherwise, it would be billions. We are talking to our UK colleagues as to which channel is the most probable to transfer that money to our accounts.”

Iran has insisted that the Vienna nuclear talks and the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other prisoners are entirely separate issues.

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