IRNA � The settlement of UK's �450 million debt case owed to Iran and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's case are two separate issues, an Iranian parliamentary official said.

�Zaghari's case is not something new and it has been discussed for a long time,� Head of Iran-UK Parliamentary Friendship Group Mostafa Kavakebian told Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Tuesday.

�We have held talks with different British delegations on Zaghari�s case and we have mentioned that Iran�s judicial system has its own benchmarks as regard nationality, but we will do our best,� he said.

Zaghari, who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in Kerman in April 2016 on charges related to national security; she has been sentenced to five years in jail.

After arresting her, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in Kerman issued a statement and said, �In a sophisticated intelligence operation in the cyberspace and real life, one of the foreign-affiliated ringleaders who had various missions to materialize the menacing designs of the enemies of the Islamic Establishment, was identified and arrested.�

Meanwhile, reacting to a recent news disseminated by certain media outlets in Britain on the United Kingdom's financial debts to Iran and their settlement by London and attempts by these media to connect the two separate issues, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi said that Zaghari's case was examined in the Iranian courts and she has been convicted after undergoing legal proceedings.

'The case which is known as International Military Services (IMS) IMS deals with an agreement signed between Iran and England in 1974-1976 to buy Chieftain Tanks and some military vehicles as well,' Iran's Ambassador to London Hamid Baeedinejad had earlier said.

'Based on one of the agreements, IMS was supposed to deliver 1,500 Chieftain Tanks to the Iranian Army, but only 185 ones have so far been received,' he said. 'The British side has not fulfilled its commitments and the implementation of these agreements was breached by London,' he added.