TEHRAN, Iran - Iran on Saturday insisted that 15 British sailors it seized had illegally entered Iranian waters, denouncing what it called a “blatant aggression.” The Britons were being taken to the capital for questioning, Iranian media reported.
Iran’s tough comments came after Britain demanded the return of the sailors and denied they had strayed into Iranian waters while searching for smugglers off Iraq’s coast.
The eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Royal Marines had just searched a merchant ship when they and their two inflatable boats were intercepted by Iranian vessels Friday at around 10:30 a.m. near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, U.S. and British officials said. The Iranian vessels surrounded them and escorted them away at gunpoint.
Iran’s semi-official news agency, Fars, reported that the 15 Britons have been transferred to the capital Tehran “to explain their aggressive action.” There was no immediate official confirmation of the move.
Navigational equipment on the seized British boats “show that they (sailors) were aware that they were operating in Iranian waters and Iranian border gurads fulfilled their responsibility,” Fars quoted an unidentified official as saying.
The agency said the 15 included “some women.” In Britain, officials told the Press Association news agency that at least one woman was among the group.
The incident came at a time of heightened tensions over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and allegations that Iran is arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq. Still, Britain was treating it as a mistake rather than a provocation.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Iran was carrying out a “further investigation ... of the blatant aggression.”
Hosseini accused the Britons of “violating the sovereign boundaries of other states and illegal” and described the incident as a “su****ious move,” according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
He accused Britain of trying to cover up the incursion, saying it should “refrain from putting the blame on others.”
‘No doubt that we want them back’
Iran summoned the British charge d’affaires to the Foreign Ministry on Friday and demanded an immediate explanation.
Britain, in turn, demanded Tehran release the 15. In London, the British government summoned the Iranian ambassador to the Foreign Office, and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the Iranian envoy “was left in no doubt that we want them back.”
The European Union also called for the “immediate liberation” of the captured sailors, according to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said the Royal Navy personnel were in Iraqi territorial waters when they were seized. Cmdr Kevin Aandahl of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain also said it was “very clear” they were in Iraqi waters.
“We’ve been on operations there for several years,” Aandahl said. He said coalition vessels respect a 1975 treaty between Iran and Iraq that sets the boundary between the two countries as running down the middle of the Shatt al-Arab.
But the boundary has long been in dispute around the 125-mile-long channel Shatt al-Arab —known in Iran as Arvandrud, Farsi for the Arvand River. Saddam Hussein canceled the 1975 treaty five years later and invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war. Virtually all of Iraq’s oil is exported through an oil terminal near the mouth of the channel.
‘Simple mistake’
The Iraqi military commander of the country’s territorial waters cast doubt on claims the Britons were in Iraqi waters.
“We were informed by Iraqi fishermen after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control,” Brig. Gen. Hakim Jassim told AP Television News in the southern city of Basra.
“We don’t know why they were there. And these British troops were besieged by unknown gunboats, I don’t know from where,” he said.
Some 500 Iranian students gathered on the shore near where the soldiers were captured, shouting “Death to Britain” and “Death to America,” the Fars news agency reported.
The sailors, from the frigate HMS Cornwall, are part of a task force that maintains security in Iraqi waters under authority of the U.N. Security Council.
The Cornwall’s commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, said he hoped the detention was a “simple mistake” stemming from the unclear border.
‘Strike enemies that attack’
In June 2004, six British marines and two sailors were seized by Iran in the same waterway. They were presented blindfolded on Iranian television and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally, then released unharmed after three days.
The incident occurred as the U.N. Security Council debates expanding sanctions against Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment. A vote was expected later Saturday. The U.S. and other nations suspect Iran is trying to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies that and insists it won’t halt the program.
With tensions running high, the United States has bolstered its naval forces in the Persian Gulf in a show of strength directed at Iran. U.S. officials have expressed concern that with so much military hardware in the Gulf, a small incident like Friday’s could escalate into a dangerous confrontation.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, warned this week that if Western countries “treat us with threats and enforcement of coercion and violence, undoubtedly they must know that the Iranian nation and authorities will use all their capacities to strike enemies that attack.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17769296/
Iran seizes 15 Royal Navy personnel
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