Iran: British naval personnel confessed to territorial violation
By Assaf Uni, Haaretz Correspondent and The Associated Press
Iran's military said on Saturday British naval personnel seized in the Gulf confessed to entering Iranian waters illegally, but Britain maintained they were detained inside Iraqi territory and demanded their release.
An Iranian military official said on Saturday "confessions" and other evidence showed that British naval personnel who were detained in the Gulf on Friday had illegally entered Iranian waters.
"The investigation, and confessions that we have, shows they have been arrested in Iranian waters," an armed forces commander told state radio, which only gave his last name Afshari.
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"The investigation is going on and they are healthy and there is no problem."
Asked about the statement, a British diplomat in Tehran said: "We still maintain they were in Iraqi waters when they were picked up."
The Fars news agency reported on Saturday that the 15 British navy personnel who were detained in the Gulf on Friday have been transferred to Tehran to explain their "aggressive action."
Fars added that the service people had in their possession "military and sophisticated geographic exploration equipment." The Fars report received no immediate confirmation.
"Navigational equipment on the seized British boats show that they (sailors) were aware that they were operating in Iranian waters and Iranian border guards fulfilled their responsibility," Fars quoted an unidentified official as saying.
Tehran earlier on Saturday condemned what it called "Britain's illegal infiltration of Iranian waters," the ISNA news agency reported.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini said the "interfering and hostile British act was suspicious and contrary to international rights and therefore there could be no justification (for London) not accepting responsibility."
The spokesman added the British officials should make recompense for their mistake rather than sticking to "irrelevant interpretations for justifying their illegal act."
Fars said the British navy personnel, who it said included some women, were transferred to the Iranian capital around noon local time on Saturday.
Iranian officials were not immediately available to comment on the report, which did not give a source for the information.
Earlier on Saturday, Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned what he called the illegal entry of British naval personnel into Iranian waters as a "suspicious act", the official IRNA news agency said.
Iranian forces seized 15 British servicemen on Friday in the mouth of the waterway that separates Iran and Iraq, triggering a diplomatic crisis at a time of heightened tension over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
"The Foreign Ministry's spokesman called the illegal and interfering entry of British forces into Iranian territorial waters a suspicious act and against international laws and rules and has harshly condemned it," IRNA said.
It quoted Hosseini as saying, "Violating the territory of other countries and non-permitted entrance ... show unusual aims and is against international treaties and there are no excuses for ignoring and not accepting the responsibility for that."
Iran said on Friday that the 15 British sailors it detained in the Persian Gulf had entered Iranian territorial waters illegally and summoned the top British diplomat in Tehran to protest, Iranian state television quoted an Iranian foreign ministry official as saying.
This is not the first time that British military personnel during the occupation of Iraq have entered illegally into Iran's territorial waters, the state TV quoted the official as saying. He was not identified by name.
The official described the incident as an open incursion and illegal entry into Iranian waters.
"The British soldiers and marines have been detained by Iran's border authorities for further investigation ... of the blatant aggression into Iranian territorial waters," the official also said.
Iran demanded an immediate explanation from London and asked that this not happen again, the television said.
The British personnel from the frigate HMS Cornwall were engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters, and had completed their inspection of a merchant ship when they were accosted by Iranian vessels, the the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
Earlier Friday, Britain's Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett demanded a full explanation for the incident. She made these remarks after Iran's ambassador was summoned to Britain's Foreign Office and held a 20-minute meeting with a senior aide.
"He was left in no doubt that we want them back," Beckett said in a statement.
Sir Peter Ricketts, a senior aide to Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, held a brief meeting with Rasoul Movahedian, after the diplomat was called to Britain's Foreign Office to account for the incident.
Britain's ambassador to Iran, Geoffrey Adams, had raised the matter with officials in Tehran, Beckett said.
The U.S. Navy said Friday that the Iranians radioed the British and said that that no harm had come to their sailors, and that they were seized because they were in Iranian waters.
The U.S. Navy, which operates off the Iraqi coast along with British forces, said earlier that Iran's Revolutionary Guard naval forces were responsible.
Britain's Defense Ministry said the British Navy personnel were engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters, and had completed a ship inspection when they were accosted by the Iranian vessels.
"We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level," the ministry said.
A U.S. official said the incident occurred just outside a long-disputed waterway called the Shatt al-Arab dividing Iraq and Iran. It came as tensions were running high in the Persian Gulf after Iran's defiance of UN Security Council orders to rollback on its nuclear program and U.S. allegations that Iran is arming Shiite militias in Iraq.
U.S. officials had expressed concern that with so much military hardware concentrated in the Persian Gulf, just such a small incident could spiral out of control and trigger a major armed confrontation.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration was monitoring the situation.
"The British government is demanding the immediate safe return of the people and equipment and we are keeping watch on the situation," Snow said.
Vali Nasr, a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, suggested that Iran may be retaliating for the arrest of five Iranians in a U.S.-led raid in northern Iraq in January. The U.S. said the five included a Revolutionary Guards general.
"I think Iran sees this as retaliation for the arrest of their own personnel. They have repeatedly said that they want their personnel released," Nasr said. "So they are either signaling that they can do the same thing or they are trying to bring attention to it."
Earlier this week, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said "if Western countries want to 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."
Commander Kevin Aandahl of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet said the British crew members were intercepted by several larger patrol boats operated by Iranian sailors belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, a radical force that operates separately from the country's regular navy.
Lieutenant Commander Charlie Brown of the U.S. Fifth Fleet said six Revolutionary Guards patrol boats intercepted the two British vessels.
"The Iranian boats normally carry bow-mounted machine guns, while the British boarding party carried only sidearms," Aandahl said. "No shots were fired and there appeared to be no physical harm done to any personnel involved or their vessels," Aandahl said.
The seizure of the British vessels, a pair of rigid inflatable boats known as RIBs, took place in long-disputed waters just outside of the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that divides Iraq from Iran, Aandahl said. A 1975 treaty gave the waters to Iraq and U.S. and British ships commonly operate there, but Aandahl said Iran disputes Iraq's jurisdiction over the waters.
"It's been in dispute for some time," Aandahl said. "We've been operating there for a couple of years and we know the lines very well. This was a compliant boarding, this happens routinely. What's out of the ordinary is the Iranian response."
Aandahl said the U.S.-led task force has touchier relations with the Revolutionary Guard, who often ignores normal maritime operating traditions, than with the regular Iranian navy.
The Shatt al-Arab waterway is formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at the town of Al-Qurnah. It flows southeastward for 193 kilometers and passes the port of Basra and the Iranian port of Abadan before emptying into the Persian Gulf.
A fisherman who said he was with a group of Iraqis from the southern city of Basra fishing in Iraqi waters in the northern area of the Gulf said he saw the Iranian seizure. The fisherman declined to be identified because of security concerns.
Two boats, each with a crew of six to eight multinational forces, were searching Iraqi and Iranian boats Friday morning in Ras al-Beesha area in the northern entrance of the Arab Gulf, but big Iranian boats came and took the two boats with their crews to the Iranian waters.
The Cornwall's commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, said the frigate lost communication with the boarding party, but a helicopter crew saw the Iranian vessels approach.
"I've got 15 sailors and marines who have been arrested by the Iranians and my immediate concern is their safety," Lambert told British Broadcasting Corp. television.
Lambert said it was a routine boarding, the skipper of the vessel answered all the questions, and the leader of the boarding party cleared him to continue with his business.
In June 2004, six British marines and two sailors were seized by Iran in the Shatt al-Arab. They were presented blindfolded on Iranian television and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally, then released unharmed after three days.
Current EU president Germany on Saturday called on the Iranian government to release immediately all of the detained British serviceman and would underline its position in a statement to be issued later in the day, German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin.
The German foreign minister also said he was hopeful that the UN Security Council would be able to agree this weekend on a resolution tightening sanctions against Tehran
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