Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.
Boris Johnson will meet Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Downing Road this afternoon.
The prime minister’s spokesperson confirmed Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was held captive for six years in Iran, will probably be accompanied by her husband Richard Ratcliffe and daughter Gabriella.
Different international workplace officers can even be current on the assembly which will probably be their first since Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s return to the UK.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, and fellow British-Iranian nationwide Anoosheh Ashoori, 67, have been launched in March after the UK agreed to settle a £400m debt with Tehran courting from 1979.
Politics Hub: Rees-Mogg insists civil service cuts will save billions
Forward of the assembly, the PM’s spokesperson mentioned: “We have mentioned beforehand that the prime minister was open to assembly each Nazanin in addition to Mr (Anoosheh) Ashoori.
“It’s one thing we have now been attempting to rearrange. I’ve set out that he’s going to welcome her to Downing Road to debate her ordeal in Iran.”
The official mentioned the assembly was “one thing we have labored collectively on to make occur”.
In 2017, Mr Johnson erroneously knowledgeable MPs that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been “educating individuals journalism” earlier than her detainment by Iranian authorities.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s household and her employer have each maintained Mr Johnson’s feedback have been unfaithful.
Requested whether or not the PM could be apologising to Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the spokesman replied: “I feel you will need to keep in mind that it was the Iranian authorities who have been accountable for her unfair detention, and the choice to launch her was all the time of their reward.
“Nevertheless, I might level again to the prime minister’s phrases, his solutions to questions on this earlier than and he has beforehand apologised for his feedback in 2017.”
Please use Chrome browser for a extra accessible video participant
3:01
In a news conference in March after her return to the UK, which noticed her reunited together with her husband Richard and daughter Gabriella, the previous hostage mentioned “what occurred now ought to have occurred six years in the past”.
She mentioned: “I used to be advised many, many occasions that ‘oh, we’ll get you dwelling’. That by no means occurred.
“What number of international secretaries does it take to get somebody dwelling? What occurred now ought to have occurred six years in the past.”
She added that the “that means of freedom isn’t going to be full” till Morad Tahbaz and other dual nationals who’ve been held in Iran are launched.
Former international secretary Jeremy Hunt defended Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe after she was criticised as being “ungrateful” following her launch.
Final month, chair of the Overseas Affairs Committee and Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat mentioned Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe is “proper to ask for solutions” as he launched a choose committee inquiry into the federal government’s dealing with of her six-year Iran hostage ordeal.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was reunited together with her household in March
Labour’s Tulip Siddiq, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s constituency MP, can even be attending the assembly in Quantity 10.
“I used to be happy to be invited to Quantity 10 together with my constituent Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her household. I do know her seven-year-old daughter Gabriella was notably excited to be assembly the prime minister,” she mentioned.
“After six lengthy years of unjust and illegal imprisonment in Iran, Nazanin deserves to listen to immediately from the prime minister about why it took so lengthy to get her dwelling.
“We’ll use the assembly as a possibility to boost the plight of British residents like Morad Tahbaz who’re nonetheless being held hostage in Iran and push the prime minister to do way more to safe their launch. He has a accountability to make sure that others should not have to endure the six years of torment that Nazanin was put by way of.
“I can even be submitting proof to the Overseas Affairs Committee’s inquiry on hostage taking, which I hope will get the underside of the federal government’s abject failure in dealing with circumstances like Nazanin’s.
“By no means once more should the federal government permit British residents to be taken hostage with so little completed to safe their launch and so few reprisals for these accountable.”
