The son of a British couple held in Iran said Wednesday his parents were “caught in the middle” of geopolitical tensions as he urged the British government to act on their case.

Joe Bennett -- whose mum Lindsay Foreman and stepdad Craig Foreman have been held in Iran since January last year -- said “very difficult” UK-Iran relations and other current events were complicating their situation.

But he hit out at what the family sees as British inaction, calling the lack of recent contact with them by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Prime Minister Keir Starmer “alarming”.

“It’s very difficult,” he told AFP outside the UK parliament, after meeting lawmakers to discuss his parents’ plight.