LONDON, March 17, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Two British-Iranians landed back in the
United Kingdom in the early hours of Thursday morning after being freed from
years of detention in Iran.

   Their release on Wednesday came as the UK government confirmed it had paid
a longstanding debt over a cancelled defence contract.

   Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori touched down at RAF Brize
Norton in southwest England at 01:08am (0108 GMT) after a stopover in Oman.

   Footage showed the pair in the cockpit talking to the pilots of their
plane, before they disembarked and walked across the tarmac together to the
main airport building, where their families were waiting.

   Both appeared relaxed, smiling and waving briefly at the cameras before
heading inside.

   "Delighted that Nazanin and Anoosheh have landed safely in the UK and are
reunited with their families and loved ones," British Foreign Secretary Liz
Truss tweeted. "Welcome home."

   Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband Richard Ratcliffe had told AFP at the family
home that "the first thing she always wanted to do was me make her a cup of
tea".

   "I'm relieved that the problems were solved," he said, standing next to
their young daughter Gabriella, adding that the government should make sure
"it doesn't happen again".

   Ashoori's family said they were "delighted... 1,672 days ago our family's
foundations were rocked when our father and husband was unjustly detained and
taken away from us".

   "Now, we can look forward to rebuilding those same foundations with our
cornerstone back in place," they said in a statement.

   UK lawmaker Tulip Siddiq, who represents the north London district where
Zaghari-Ratcliffe's family live, had tweeted a photo of her constituent
smiling on board a plane.

   "It's been 6 long years -- and I can't believe I can FINALLY share this
photo," she wrote.

   Truss also announced that Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-American who also holds
British nationality, has been released from prison "on furlough" to his
Tehran home.

   Addressing parliament later Wednesday, Truss said: "The agonies endured by
Nazanin, Anoosheh, Morad and their families must never happen again."

   - Complex talks -

   The pair were released as major powers in Vienna close in on renewing the
landmark 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on regulating Iran's
nuclear programme.

   The deal gives Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear
programme and Tehran said on Wednesday that "two issues" remain with the US
to restore the deal.

   Truss confirmed that, with diplomatic assistance from Oman, London and
Tehran had "in parallel" resolved a o394-million ($515-million, 470-million-
euro) debt dating back to the 1970s and the era of the Shah of Iran.

   The debt payment deal was reached "after highly complex and exhaustive
negotiations", Truss said, and the money can only be used for humanitarian
goods.

   The families of both Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori believe they were being
held as political prisoners until the issue was settled.

   The UK has consciously avoided saying the detention of the pair, and
others held in Iran, was linked to the debt for an order of tanks that was
cancelled after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

   Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Wednesday that Iran had
received the money "a few days ago", adding that it was "wrong to link Iran
receiving its debt... to the release of these people".

   - UK-bound -

   Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation,
the philanthropic arm of the news and data agency, was arrested in Tehran on
a visit to family in 2016.

   She was sentenced to five years in prison for plotting to overthrow the
government.

   Last year she was given a further 12-month jail term for taking part in a
rally outside the Iranian embassy in London in 2009.

   Ashoori, a retired engineer from southeast London, was arrested in 2017
and jailed for 10 years on charges of spying for Israel.

   The pair flew from Tehran to Muscat on a Royal Air Force of Oman flight,
the foreign ministry said, and then from Muscat to England. Tahbaz was
arrested alongside other environmentalists in January 2018 and sentenced to
10 years in jail for "conspiring with America".

   - 'Trumped-up charges' -

   Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK's chief executive, welcomed the
"fantastic news" of the releases, saying both were "jailed on trumped-up
national security charges".

   The government must renew "its calls for the release of the UK nationals
Mehran Raoof and Morad Tahbaz, both of whom are still going through an ordeal
all too similar to Nazanin and Anoosheh's," he added.

   Raoof, a labour rights activist, was detained in October 2020 and was
being held in solitary confinement, according to Amnesty.

   Dual nationals from Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden and the
United States have also been arrested in similar circumstances.

   Richard Ratcliffe staged a hunger strike outside the foreign ministry in
London last October after his wife lost her last appeal, and as government
ministers held talks with Iranian counterparts.

   She was freed from prison with an electronic tag in March 2020 because of
the coronavirus pandemic but had been held in Iran under a form of house
arrest ever since.