Iranian foreign minister MohammadJavad Zarif has offered a prisoner exchange to secure the release of British charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Mr Zarif claimed that Iran had told the US administration six months ago that it was open to a prisoner swap deal but had not received a response.
The minister, speaking at an event in New York, said that he was willing to swap Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe for an Iranian woman detained in Australia for the past three years on a US extradition request.
“I feel sorry for them, and I have done my best to help,” Mr Zarif said of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been held for more than three years in a Tehran jail for what the UK government maintains are trumped up charges.
“But nobody talks about this lady in Australia who gave birth to a child in prison. … I put this offering on the table publicly now – exchange them.”
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, a dual British-Iranian national who worked for the charitable arm of the Thomson Reuters media organisation, was detained in April 2016 after visiting her parents with her young daughter.
She has been held despite a high-level campaign by the British government for her release. Supporters say she is being used as a political pawn by the clerical regime.
The Iranian woman appeared to be a reference to Negar Qodsi-Kani, an Iranian citizen who lived in Australia who was detained in June 2017 while pregnant for allegedly violating US commercial laws. Iranian officials have repeatedly raised her case as a “violation” of human rights.
Robert O’Brien, Donald Trump’s special envoy for hostage affairs, told the National earlier this month that there would be “no concessions, no prisoner swaps, no pallets of cash” to secure the release of US citizens.
He also said that Mr Zarif had reneged on a previous promise to release Siamak Namazi, a Dubai-based US citizen, who was imprisoned in Iran in 2015.
Mr Trump has signalled that bringing back detainees held around the world is a priority for his administration but has had little success with Iran.
Mr Zarif’s offer is seen as inconsistent with other Iranian signals on the topic. Sources with close knowledge of the situation suggest it may be an attempt to manipulate public opinion in the US to turn against Mr Trump’s hawkish Iran policy by raising hopes of prisoner releases.
“All these people that are in prison inside the United States, on extradition requests from the United States, we believe their charges are phoney,” said Mr Zarif.
“The United States believes the charges against these people in Iran are phoney. Let’s not discuss that,” he said. “Let’s have an exchange. I’m ready to do it and I have authority to do it.”
There was no immediate comment from Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family, which has been vocally campaigning for her release.
The detained woman’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, was part of a group of families who told the UN last month that previous releases had been “associated with money, prisoner exchanges, lifting of sanctions, repayment of arms debts or other concessions”.
The families called for an international approach to dealing with the issue to discourage illegal detentions to secure bilateral concessions from rival governments.
It concluded: “Iran’s practice of targeting dual and foreign nationals and using them for diplomatic leverage constitutes crimes of the most serious order including torture, enforced disappearances, hostage-taking and crimes against humanity.”
Source » thenational