On Wednesday morning, Iranian officials said that British-Iranian detainees Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori had been released from custody. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s lawyer in Iran confirmed the news, as did Tulip Siddiq, her MP in the UK.
When asked for comment by the Guardian Newspaper, Zaghari-family Ratcliffe’s in the UK stated they had no official confirmation, but that things were moving in the correct direction.
Richard Ratcliffe, her husband, who has been through several false dawns about her release, was cautious in his response, stating he would wait for official confirmation from the UK Foreign Office.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was handed over to a British delegation at Tehran’s international Imam Khomeini airport and was expected to leave Iran on Wednesday, according to Iranian official media.
The position of Ashoori was immediately unknown.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was in the UAE on Tuesday, claimed that talks on ZaghariRatcliffe were “getting forward” but that they were “going right up to the wire.”
The apparent breakthrough will bring an end to Nazarin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s ordeal which began in 2016 when she was detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps at Imam Khomeini airport after she’d seen her parents to showher daughter, Gabriella, to them.
In recent days, there had been signs of progress in the delicate negotiations between the UK and Iran.
On Tuesday, Siddiq announced that Zaghari-British Ratcliffe’s passport had been returned, providing a ray of hope for the 43-year-old.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s Release as she arrives at Tehran’s Airport
