LONDON, 12 November 2021, (TON): Britain said that officials had pressed Iranian deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani to release detained dual nationals including British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

The foreign ministry said “British foreign office officials also told Bagheri Kani at a meeting in London that Iran should conclude the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) nuclear deal under the terms on the table now.”

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said in a statement “The Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister was also pressed on the need for Iran to urgently release all British nationals unfairly detained in Iran, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Anoosheh Ashoori and Morad Tahbaz.”

Iran’s foreign ministry was not immediately available to comment.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested at a Tehran airport in April 2016 and later convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment.

In April, an Iranian court sentenced Zaghari-Ratcliffe to a new term in jail on charges of propaganda against Iran’s ruling system, just a month after she finished a prior five-year sentence. That sentence has not yet started, though it has been upheld by an appeals court.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family and the foundation have denied the charges. The foundation is a charity that operates independently of media company Thomson Reuters and its news subsidiary Reuters.

Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, is on a hunger strike to highlight her case. He met British minister for the Middle East James Cleverly.