Mick Hartley

The other side of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release.

The release by Iran of British hostages Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anooseh Ashoori in return for more than £400m is linked directly to an imminent deal to lift sanctions which will bring in billions for the Iran regime, informed sources have told the JC.

An agreement with Tehran over its nuclear programme is expected to be signed before the end of this week. The deal may include the removal of the notorious Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from the official US list of terrorist organisations, according to reports.

A former senior member of Britain’s intelligence community told the JC: “You have to see this as all one package. The timing of the talks that have led to the release of the hostages is not coincidental.”It is feared that the flood of cash will be used by Tehran to fund terror in the region. One expert last night told the JC that Israel – long the target of Iran – should urgently strengthen its "defensive capability".

In return for releasing the two British hostages, Iran will receive £400m that the Shah’s regime in the 70s gave the UK as a down payment for British Chieftan tanks, plus an undisclosed sum for interest and the effects of inflation.

Britain decided against sending the tanks after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a former aid worker, has been a prisoner for seven years, and Mr Ashoori, a civil engineer, for almost five.

Ashoori was jailed for ten years on a charge he was a Mossad spy, which he has always denied. Under the terms of the nuclear deal, Iran will regain access to frozen assets worth about £75bn, and be able to increase its oil sales by £40bn every year. In return it will return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed under the Obama administration in 2015.

Its terms include sunset clauses which mean that it will be able to develop weapons-grade uranium after 2031. Israel has tried and failed to persuade its western allies not to reinstate the JCPOA, which President Trump withdrew the US from in 2018.

Danielle Pletka, an Iran expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, told the JC that she expected the release of American hostages in Iran to be announced imminently: “This is all part of the same thing. Iran has been blackmailing us and this is now a wonderful vindication of their strategy.“

"The deal now on the table gives Iran everything it ever dreamt of and more. I hope for its own sake Israel is developing a strong defensive capability.”

It sounds like the new JCPOA is pretty much a done deal – a new improved JCPOA, which, as we've been warned, seems to be characterised by American willingness to accommodate Iran's demands with scarcely a murmur of protest.