Britain and Iran trade barbs over captured sailors

IRAN and Britain stepped up the pressure over 15 detained British soldiers yesterday, with Iranian state TV reporting the Foreign Ministry had protested their ‘illegal’ incursion to the British ambassador.

Britain and the European Union have demanded Iran release the British sailors — seized at gunpoint on Friday by the Iranian navy after they had searched a civilian vessel in the Iraqi part of the Shatt al Arab waterway.

Iran says the sailors were trespassing in a “blatant aggression.”

Blair told a news conference in Berlin: “It is simply is not true that they went into Iranian territorial waters.”

He described the situation as “very serious” and said he hoped the Iranians “understood how fundamental an issue this is for the British Government.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry met British Ambassador Geoffrey Adams, “to protest the illegal entry of sailors into Iranian territorial waters,” state TV reported.

The ambassador asked for the immediate release of the detainees, and “where they were being held,” said a British spokeswoman.

Foreign Office under-secretary Lord Triesman said British officials still have no idea of the whereabouts of 15 sailors, one of whom is a woman.

“We don’t know where (the sailors are) and I wish we did,” Triesman told Sky News yesterday. The Foreign Office said British requests for access to the 15 Britons had been denied.

Iran’s General Ali Reza Afshar said on Saturday the seized Britons had been taken to Tehran for questioning where they “confessed” to illegally entering Iranian waters.

Lord Triesman said the issue of whether the sailors had strayed into Iranian waters was a technical point.

“We believe there’s good strong evidence that they were in Iraqi water at the time,” Triesman said.

“That’s a technical issue and I think it could be resolved as a technical issue.”