Iran says it will release Russian journalist accused of espionage

Iran agreed to release a Russian journalist detained on suspicion of spying for Israel, in a rare concession that defused a potentially damaging diplomatic rift with its key ally.

The announcement came just hours after Russia’s foreign ministry on Friday summoned the Iranian ambassador in Moscow to account for the arrest of Yulia Yuzik, who was seized from her Tehran hotel room by members of the Revolutionary Guards Corps earlier this week.

Iran has been accused by several Western governments of systematically detaining foreign dual nationals and charging them with espionage to use as leverage in diplomatic disputes. It is rare for a citizen of Russia, a close ally, to be detained.

Iran denies following a policy of diplomatic hostage taking, saying that all detainees are facing legitimate criminal investigations.

Ms Yuzik, a specialist on the North Caucasus who has written for dozens of Russian and Western publications,  arrived in Iran on Sunday but immediately ran into trouble when her passport was confiscated at the airport.

“She was there for several days without documents. Then men came to her hotel, kicked in the door and took her away,"  her former husband Boris Voitsekhovsky told the Telegraph.

In a brief call with her mother on Thursday evening, she said she was being held in a prison cell and was due to appear in court on charges of working with Israeli intelligence on Saturday.

Mr Voitsekhovsky said Ms Yuzik, 34, spent several months working in Iran in 2017, and had returned this week on a "private trip" to see local journalists she had met while there. He said he was unaware of any reason to believe she was under suspicion in Iran.

Iran's foreign ministry told Russian news agencies late on Friday that Ms Yuzhik had been detained for questioning and would be released "shortly", but did not give further details.

Jason Rezaian, a former Tehran bureau chief of the Washington post who spent a year and a half in Iranian detention after being accused of espionage in 2014, wrote on Twitter: "that’s what they said about me and so many others."

The rapid response to Russia's complaints contrasts with the long-running disputes over several dual nationals from Western countries.

They include Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe, the mother of one from Hampstead who has been held on espionage charges since 2016 and whose case has become a matter of fierce diplomatic contention between Iran and Britain.

Richard Ratcliffe, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, said Ms Yuzik’s detention appeared to fit the same pattern as that of his wife.

“More and more people are being taken, including from countries with ostensibly good relations with Iran. It is a clear escalation in an increasingly overt tactic of hostage diplomacy,” he said.

“State hostage taking is an issue that needs to be on the table at the United Nations Security Council. It really does need to be something that the great powers are sitting down and working out. This is getting out of control."

In a separate case, Iran on Friday accused France of “unacceptable interference in its domestic affairs" after diplomats sought access to Fariba Adelkhah, a French-Iranian academic who has been held since summer.

Ms Adelkhah, 60, is a research director at the Centre for International Studies and Research at Sciences Po University in Paris who specializes in Shiia Islam.

She was arrested by Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel in June or July.  France said on Thursday that it had “repeatedly” sought consular access to Ms Adelkhah and called on Iran to show “transparency” in her case.

Iran does not recognise dual citizenship and rejects requests for consular access to dual nationals. Russia is an ally of Iran and the two countries' militaries have fought side-by side to prop-up Bashar Assad's regime in Syria.

But they are at odds on a number of issues including delineation of oil resources in the Caspian Sea.

Vladimir Putin signed a law ratifying a 2018 convention dividing the sea between the five Caspian littoral states on Monday. Iran's parliament has so far refused to ratify it, amid public criticism that it surrenders a large chunk of territory.