Successive UK defence secretaries have opposed releasing the payment on a number of ostensible grounds – most commonly in recent years, refusal has been justified on the basis the money would go to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, designated a terrorist organisation by the US and subject to EU sanctions.
The UK Ministry of Defence has rejected a plea from the Foreign Office to hand over £400 million owed by the UK government to Iran, The Guardian reports, in the process making the release of imprisoned British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe less likely.
Speaking in parliament March 2014, Conservative MP Ben Wallace slammed the government’s handling of the debt, and noted the tanks were then given to Saddam Hussein, who “proceeded to use a number of those tanks against the people of Iran”.