Tehran, IRNA – Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Wednesday that Britain has paid a long-overdue debt to Iran.

Amirabdollahian made the remarks speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony in Tehran on the eve of the new Iranian Year (Nowrouz) where the Tehran-based ambassadors and heads of foreign mission were present.

The foreign minister however rejected any connection between the payment of the Iranian debt and the people held in Iranian prisons on security charges.

He said that Britain owed some £390 million since before the 1979 Islamic Revolution when Iran had paid the sum to the UK to purchase defensive items.  

British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss also confirmed earlier today that her country’s debt to Iran has been settled.

The Iranian foreign minister said that the payment of Iranian debts followed four months of intensive negotiations with his British counterpart.

He said that the debt has been settled few days ago while the judicial process for the release of the two people imprisoned in Iran was simultaneously pursued.

Amirabdollahian noted that although the time of the debt settlement and the release of the two prisoners were close together, there were no connection between the two events.  

The release of the two prisoners finally happened with the human look of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the issue, the foreign minister said.  

News reports about receiving money and letting go of the prisoners are not true, he added.

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