UK foreign minister ends Iran trip with no announcement on jailed  British journalist

The UK Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, ended a trip to Iran on Sunday with no announcement on the fate of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British woman who has been in a Tehran jail since April 2016 on spying charges.
There had been hopes that Johnson would be able to negotiate a release for the mother-of-one from London during the two-day diplomatic mission that ended with a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
A statement from the British Foreign Office said the two sides had discussed “concerns about the consular cases of dual nationals.”
A month ago Johnson caused a furore in the UK after he told a parliamentary committee that Zaghari-Ratcliffe was in Iran to teach journalism.
“When you look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism as I understand it,” Johnson told the committee, adding that he found the situation “deeply depressing.”
Both Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her employer have always maintained she was simply visiting family while on vacation.
The seriousness of Johnson’s error became apparent days later when Zaghari-Ratcliffe was summoned to an unscheduled court hearing at which the foreign secretary’s remarks were cited as proof she had engaged in “propaganda against the regime.”
Her family fears the five-year sentence she was given on espionage charges could be lengthened.
Marking one year since British-Iranians arrest
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained at the airport in Tehran in April 2016 on her way back to the UK from visiting family with her daughter Gabriella, then 22 months old. The child has since been looked after by her maternal grandparents.
Last September, in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Rouhani said he had his own “sensitivities” regarding the case, but underlined the separation of the judiciary and executive in the Iranian constitution.
During his visit to Iran, which had been scheduled for more than a year, Johnson also met with the Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
It was the first visit by a UK foreign secretary to Iran since 2015.