NAZANIN Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said it shouldn’t have taken six years and five foreign secretaries to secure her release from Iran.

The freed British-Iranian national expressed her frustration at the UK Government’s action at her first press conference since flying home last week.

The 43-year-old said she felt she had sometimes felt “left behind”, and thanked her “amazing” husband Richard Ratcliffe for “tirelessly” campaigning on her behalf.

She also thanked her daughter Gabriella “for being very, very patient with mummy to be coming home”.

Speaking at Westminster, Mr Ratcliffe thanked the UK Government for his wife’s release

However Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe said she did “not really agree with him on that level”, and that her captors had made it plain within weeks what would help secure her release.

She said she has seen five foreign secretaries over the course of her six-year detention, adding: “That is unprecedented given the politics of the UK. 

“I love you Richard, respect whatever you believe, but I was told many, many times that ‘Oh we’re going to get you home’. That never happened.”

She said she had stopped placing trust in the Government’s ministers, adding: “I mean, how many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home? Five?

“What’s happened now should have happened six years ago.”

Mrs Zahaghari-Ratcliffe and fellow detainee Anoosheh Ashoori, 67, left Tehran on Wednesday after months of negotiations over an historic £400m debt owed by the UK.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was reunited with her seven-year-old daughter at RAF Brize Norton airport in the early hours of Thursday.

She had been detained in Iran since 2016, where she was accused of plotting against the country’s government. 

Mr Ashooori, a retired civil engineer, has been detained since 2017 on spying charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Their release followed the UK settling a debt dating from the 1970s, when Iran ordered British arms under the Shah, an order that was cancelled after the Iranian revolution in 1979.

Although sanctions against Iran had blocked repayment for years, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the money would be ringfenced for humanitarian purposes.

The press conference included Roxanne Tahbaz, the daughter of British-US national Morad Tahbaz, 66, a wildlife conservationist detained by Iran. 

She said the situation regarding her father was “incredibly urgent” and called for him to be returned to the UK, along with her mother, who is on a travel ban within Iran.

She said: “Nazanin’s family’s been really kind and wonderful to us, so we are genuinely happy for them. But obviously it does trigger something for us and it’s very, very devastating that we’re in this position. But we look at their family and their joy, and hope that we’ll have a very similar experience very soon.”

She urged the UK Government to do “whatever they have to do” to make her family “whole again”.

Calm and composed thoughout the 50-minute press event, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe said Mr Tahbaz’s situation illustrated the lack of freedom in Iran.

She told reporters: “I believe that the meaning of freedom is never going to be complete until such time that all of us who are unjustly detained in Iran are reunited with our families.

“To begin with Morad, but also the other dual nationals, members of religious groups, or prisoners of conscience who are … 

“I mean, we do realise that if I have been in prison for six years there are so many other people we don’t know their names who have been suffering in prison in Iran.”

She said the experience would “always haunt me”, and that her faith helped her through it.

Mr Ratcliffe said it was “nice to be retiring” from his campaigning.

He said: “It’s been a long struggle. I’m immensely, immensely pleased and proud of my wife, and proud to have her home, proud that we start a new chapter, and get to be a normal family again.”

He said the journey back to normality will involve “baby steps”, adding: “I am super proud of her strength and her survival and her grace.

“I’m so pleased she’s back home, that she came home to us. We’re still negotiating whether daddy’s allowed in the same bed as Gabriella and Nazanin. We’ll get there.

“I think we’ll do this and then we will disappear off and heal a bit.”

Sir Keir Starmer said Boris Johnson had caused the detention of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe to “go on for longer because of his words”, a reference to the Prime Minister wrongly telling MPs while foreign secretary in 2017 that she had been training journalists in Iran. 

The Labour leader told reporters on a visit to Stevenage that when Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe returned to the UK last week it was “just an incredible moment”.

He added: “I’m sorry to say that the Prime Minister caused this to go on for longer because of his words. And, you know, I do think there are questions that now need to be asked in relation to that.”

Downing Street said the Government was continuing to lobby the Iranian authorities for the return of Mr Tahbaz, as well as working very closely with the US on the issue.

Mr Tahbaz, who was originally released from jail last week but was later returned to custody, has joint US, UK and Iranian citizenship.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “He is a tri-national. We are working very closely with the United States to secure his permanent release and departure from Iran.

“We have been in regular contact with Morad’s family and continue to lobby the Irainian authorities at the highest level.”