UK government officials traveled to Tehran last week reportedly discussing legal ways to pay the country’s £400m debt to Iran, the Iranian ambassador to London, Mohsen Baharvand, has said.
The UK Foreign Office has refused to discuss any details of the payment to Iran.
The debt is dating back to an arms sale to Iran in the mid-1970s.
The UK's move is apparently linked to its efforts to release several nationals from Iranian prisons.
Families of the UK dual nationals detained in Iran have repeatedly said they believe their family members are being held hostage until the debt is paid.
Speaking to reporters in London on Friday, Baharvand said that the two countries had been close to an agreement on the debt in the summer.
“We wanted to use that deal to ask our people that we are seeing a good sign from the UK and then that gives us a possibility to expedite our efforts to help the dual nationals and things like that. Then we had a deal. We signed it but two days after the signature of that deal the UK government said they could not implement it because of US sanctions,” he said.
“We are trying. We should not be that pessimistic. We are working with our Foreign Office colleagues to reach that deal. We are in the process of discussions. Last week there was a delegation from the UK in Iran and personally I was talking to the Foreign Office and I am hopeful we will reach an agreement.”
