Iran says UK is ready to pay a £400million debt which could free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

• Iran says UK ready to pay £400 million debt and working on payment method 
• Development came as Richard Ratcliffe begins third week of hunger strike 
• Family claim Iranian authorities told Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe she was being held on spying charges because of the debt

Iran has claimed that the UK is ready to pay a £400million debt which could free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Tehran’s deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani said the countries were working on a payment method.

The development came as the British-Iranian’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, begins his third week of a hunger strike today.

Iran has claimed that the UK is ready to pay a £400million debt which could free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (file photo)

Discussing his meeting with UK ministers on Thursday, Mr Bagheri Kani said: ‘The main issue about paying the debt and its level is agreed, but the method and process of how the payment is made hasn’t yet been resolved.’

Her family claim Iranian authorities told Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe she was being held on spying charges because of the debt, part of a 1971 arms deal dispute.

UK ministers did not respond to the reports, but Mr Ratcliffe told the Daily Mail: ‘The fact there’s movement is a cause for hope. It has felt for a while that the Iranians want to resolve it. It is less clear the Brits want to.’

He is on hunger strike outside the Foreign Office to try to prevent his wife, pictured, who is under house arrest at her parents’ house in Tehran, being sent back to jail.

The development came as the British-Iranian’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, begins his third week of a hunger strike today

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