The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has described a meeting with Boris Johnson as “positive and constructive” but faced a new setback on Wednesday as the Foreign Office questioned the usefulness of granting her diplomatic protection. Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife has been imprisoned in Iran since April 2016, was speaking after he was granted a first face-to-face meeting with the foreign secretary.

As Tehran indicated that it would not entertain the idea of diplomatic protection, which would escalate the case of the jailed British-Iranian mother, Ratcliffe acknowledged the legal and practical difficulties it would entail. But he said it would send a strong signal, arguing that soft diplomacy had not worked and that he deemed it appropriate for her case to be escalated. “I said I thought it would be important and helpful,” he said. “The foreign secretary and the Foreign Office expressed reservations, and we agreed that there are some questions that we have sent from the lawyers.

“They have agreed to answer the questions and then for the lawyers to sit down and talk it through. Both legally and then also practically. But certainly, I think it is an important thing for us to be pushing for.”(NU.nl)…[+]