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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who holds both British and Iranian passports, was arrested in April of last year. Photograph: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe/PA

The British husband of a woman imprisoned in an Iranian jail has appealed to the Foreign Office to raise her case during a visit to Tehran this week.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who holds British and Iranian passports, has decorated her cell with pictures from her infant daughter after being sentenced to five years in jail on secret charges last year, her husband told the Guardian.

Richard Ratcliffe, an accountant who lives in north London, hopes that the Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt will hold talks with senior Iranian politicians about the 38-year-old charity worker, who was arrested in April last year.

Burt is meeting Zaghari-Ratcliffes family and is due to attend the official swearing-in ceremony for the re-elected president, Hassan Rouhani, on Saturday.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested during a trip to Iran with her daughter, Gabriella, to visit family members. The daughter, who is now three, had her passport confiscated before it was returned. She is living with her grandparents in Iran and is allowed to see her mother twice a week.

Ratcliffe, 42, said his wife was finding the separation from her daughter especially difficult. He said he hoped Burt would insist on Zaghari-Ratcliffes rights as a British and Iranian passport holder.

Its one of the quirks of the law and UK policy about dual nationality, Ratcliffe said. Nazanin lives in Britain, she is British, her jobs here, her home is here. She is being held in part, or mainly, because she is British. The way in which you cant do anything about it because she is Iranian seems so counter-intuitive.

Ratcliffe has been campaigning for his wifes release since she was arrested at Tehran airport as she tried to leave the country at the end of her visit. She was accused of trying to topple the Iranian regime.

Iran hides behind dual nationality, said Ratcliffe. The reason they dont allow the British ambassador access to her is because, Oh, she is Iranian, which is a fiction, because the reason they took her is because she is British.

Ratcliffe has applied for an Iranian visa and is hoping to visit Gabriella and Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

I have promised Nazanin I wont do anything with Gabriella without her agreement, because of course the only thing Nazanin lives for at the moment is visits from her daughter. That is the worst thing at the moment, missing these months with her daughter. Nazanin has covered the walls of her cell with pictures drawn by Gabriella during the visits.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been imprisoned at Evin jail for several months and is suffering from mental health problems, as well as physical issues with her shoulder, neck, eyesight and teeth.

Ratcliffe said he had recently had a meeting with Burt, and hoped he would raise the issue during the visit. Labour MPs have criticised the lack of progress.

He was kind, said Ratcliffe. It feels like he cares. I do have a dispute with the Foreign Office that they are not pushing hard enough, and I have made that clear all along, but I do not doubt that he cares.

Ratcliffe said he remained hopeful that his wife would be released but said Foreign Office involvement would be critical. The Foreign Office are never optimistic, said Ratcliffe. They are just guarded.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe is not the only British-Iranian citizen in an Iranian prison. Kamal Foroughi, 77, is being held for alleged espionage. Both Foroughi and Zaghari-Ratcliffe have maintained their innocence.

Ahead of his trip, Burt said the UK was keen to maintain dialogue on issues including the detainees. He said: We hope to build further on improving UK-Iran relations during President Rouhanis second term.

The presidents personal commitment to the nuclear deal is welcome and it is vital both our countries work closely together to ensure the deal continues to be successfully implemented.

We are also keen to maintain dialogue on Irans regional policies, human rights and particularly our dual national detainees. Progress in all of these areas is important to the UK.

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British husband appeals to Foreign Office to help free wife in Iranian jail - The Guardian

The husband of a British-Iranian woman imprisoned in Tehran has spoken of his hopes for her freedom, as a senior Foreign Office minister visits the country.

Alistair Burt will hold talks with senior Iranian politicians and is set to raise the cases of dual national detainees including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Kamal Foroughi.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe is serving a five year jail term in the capital for allegedly plotting to topple the country's government - a charge she has repeatedly denied.

She was arrested at Tehran Airport in April last year while visiting family in Iran with daughter Gabriella.

Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, told Sky News of his hopes that Mr Burt's talks would lead to her freedom.

Mr Ratcliffe said he hoped the politician "raises her case as much as possible, presses the Iranian government that this situation cannot continue, and that she's innocent and should be released".

He said he believed the UK government "sincerely cared" about the case.

But he also complained ministers had never spoken out and criticised her treatment, never said she was innocent and never publicly called for her release.

She has been held alone at Evin prison for the past nine months but Mr Ratcliffe said he had recently been able to talk to her on the phone every week.

He said she was in a "fragile state" and has seen a psychiatrist who diagnosed she has advanced depression.

Mr Ratcliffe said: "She's been talking in very dark terms about what she might do.

"My job is to keep campaigning and to keep her knowing we're all rooting for her, she's not forgotten and we'll try to bring her home as soon as possible."

Mr Foroughi, 77, is held in the same jail for alleged espionage in Iran. He has strenuously maintained his innocence.

He was detained in 2011 before being convicted of espionage and possessing alcohol two years later.

His son, Kamran Foroughi, told Sky News: "I am always grateful for the UK Government's intervention. The longer this goes on, the more worried we are about my dad's health.

"It's very unclear to us what sort of physical state he is in. He sounds okay on the phone...but at that age anything can happen very quickly."

Roya Nobakht is another British-Iranian being held in Evin prison.

She was jailed for five years in 2013 for making anti-government comments on Facebook.

Amnesty International UK warned the Government it must "significantly raise its game" over those being held.

Ahead of his trip Mr Burt said the UK was "keen to maintain dialogue" on issues including the detainees.

He said: "We hope to build further on improving UK-Iran relations during President Rouhani's second term."

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Briton hopes talks will trigger wife's release from prison in Iran - Sky News

The US carrier was "unprofessional and provocative" Friday, the IRGC navy said in a statement Saturday.

CNN has asked the US Navy for a response.

The USS Nimitz and a second American ship dispatched a helicopter near an oil and gas platform and approached Iranian ships, the IRGC navy said.

Iranian vessels ignored the warning flares, and the American ships later left the area, the Iranian navy added.

This is the latest in a series of encounters involving the two navies.

On Tuesday, a US Navy ship fired warning shots at an armed Iranian patrol boat in the northern end of the Persian Gulf, according to two US defense officials.

The officials said the Iranian boat is believed to have been operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

It approached and came within 150 yards of the USS Thunderbolt, a US Navy patrol ship.

The Navy ship fired warning shots into the water over concerns of a collision, one of the officials said.

Pentagon spokesman US Navy Capt. Jeff Davis previously told reporters that there had been 35 incidents of unsafe or unprofessional behavior by Iranian vessels in 2016, although the "vast majority" had occurred in the first half of that year.

In June, the US military labeled the actions of an Iranian vessel "unsafe and unprofessional" after it trained a laser on a US helicopter that was accompanying a formation of American ships transiting the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz.

No warning shots were fired during that encounter, but US defense officials criticized the use of the Iranian laser.

In April, the US accused a a guard corps ship of acting in an "unprofessional but also provocative" manner while approaching an American destroyer, the USS Mahan, while it was sailing in the Persian Gulf.

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Iran says US Navy fired warning flares at its vessels - CNN.com

The sanctions, announced jointly by the Justice, State and Treasury departments, designated 18 individuals and entities that the administration said were involved in activities that included missile development, software theft and weapons procurement.

The United States remains deeply concerned about Irans malign activities across the Middle East, which undermine regional stability, security, and prosperity, the announcement said.

The move came less than 12 hours after Mr. Trump reluctantly agreed to declare that Iran had honored the 2015 agreement. By law, the president must make such a declaration every 90 days.

The missile launched on Thursday is known as a Simorgh, or Phoenix, missile, which experts said was a copy of North Koreas Unha space-launch rocket. Irans national news channel said its missile was capable of placing satellites weighing up to 550 pounds into a 310-mile low earth orbit.

Nader Karimi Joni, a journalist close to the government of President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, said the launch on Thursday was a reaction to the House vote on Tuesday approving the new sanctions. The legislation will now go to the Senate, although it is unclear when the measure will be voted on there.

Iran is boosting its missile capabilities to order to increase the accuracy, preciseness and range, Mr. Joni said. Iran will not stop the missile projects.

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Iran Reports Successful Launch of Missile as U.S. Considers ...

A much-hyped Tehran space launch turned out to be a dud, as the Iranian Simorgh rocket suffered a "catastrophic failure" shortly after liftoff on Thursday and likely blew up before it reached space, two U.S. officials told Fox News.

On Thursday, U.S. Strategic Command, which monitors launches around the world, could only confirm a satellite was not deployed from the rocket. But fresh intelligence assessments on Friday confirmed yet another failure by the Islamic Republic in its mission to place an operational satellite into orbit --something Tehran has never done before, despite repeated attempts over the past few years.

Officials have long been concerned the technology used to put a satellite into space could also be repurposed to make a long-range ballistic missile capable of one day potentially hitting the U.S. The Simorgh rocket is based on a North Korean design.

Iran's state media on Thursday claimed the launch was successful, but U.S. spy agencies quickly determined that assessment was more propaganda than fact.

But even though it failed, Iran's attempted rocket launch succeeded in violating United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

Critics of the UN resolution -- which went into effect days after the landmark Iran nuclear agreement two years ago -- say the language is purposefully weak, however, and does not forbid Iran from carrying out such tests. The resolution states Iran is merely "called upon" not to conduct such rocket and missile tests.

"We would consider that a violation of UNSCR 2231," Nauert said flatly. "We consider that to be continued ballistic missile development."

Lucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel. You can follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews

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Iran rocket suffered 'catastrophic failure,' likely blew up ...