Iran suspends British sailor's release

Iran today rolled back on a pledge to soon free a British woman sailor, delaying her release because of Britain’s threat to freeze relations and refer the issue to the UN Security Council.

Iran’s foreign minister had said Tehran would soon free Faye Turney, the only woman among 15 British sailors and marines seized last week in what Iran says were its territorial waters near Iraq.

But on Thursday the Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani told state television that British leaders “have miscalculated this issue” and if they follow through with threats, the case “may face a legal path” – presumably putting the Britons on trial.

Also, Iranian military chief, General Ali Reza Afshar, said that owing to the “wrong behaviour” of the British government, “the release of a female British soldier has been suspended,” the semi-official Iranian news agency Mehr reported.

Britain maintains the 15 were seized in Iraqi waters after searching a merchant vessel and has asked the UN Security Council to support a call for their immediate release.

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government also said it was freezing most contacts with Iran. But Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted a government official as playing down the consequences of the British freeze.

“Tehran-London relations were already cold,” the agency quoted an unidentified official as saying.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry is to deliver a letter to the United Nations in protest at the violation of its territorial waters, IRNA said.

Britain has also enlisted international help in pressing its demand for the service member’s freedom.

Today, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discussed the fate of the captives with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on the sidelines of an Arab summit in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, that both were attending.

Ban’s spokeswoman, Soung-Ah Choi, said the UN secretary-general was addressing a number of issues in the talks and that the detention of the Britons was among them.

In Brussels the European Union’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana urged Iran to free the captives, saying the stand-off is blocking efforts to improve relations between Tehran and Europe. In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador to express concern and urge Tehran to release the Britons.

The crisis had appeared to be easing yesterday, with Mottaki saying that if the alleged entry into Iranian waters proved to have been a mistake “this can be solved” and that Britain’s “admitting the mistake will facilitate a solution to the problem.” Mottaki also said Iran had GPS devices from the seized British boats that showed they were in Iranian territory.

But tensions soared anew after Iranian television later yesterday aired footage showing the detained Britons. On the brief footage, Turney said her group had “trespassed” in Iranian waters.

The video also displayed what appeared to be a handwritten letter from Turney, 26, to her family. “I have written a letter to the Iranian people to apologise for us entering their waters,” it said. The letter also asks Turney’s parents in Britain to look after her three-year-old daughter, Molly, and her husband, Adam.

The video showed Turney in chequered head scarf and her uniform eating with other sailors and marines. Later, wearing a white tunic and black head scarf, she sat in a room before floral curtains and smoked a cigarette.

Turney was the only detainee to be shown speaking, giving her name and saying she had been in the navy for nine years.

“Obviously we trespassed into their waters,” Turney said at one point. “They were very friendly and very hospitable, very thoughtful, nice people. They explained to us why we’ve been arrested. There was no harm, no aggression.”

Britain angrily denounced the video as unacceptable and froze most dealings with Iran. Today, Blair’s office again condemned the video.

“Nobody should be put in that position. It is an impossible position to be put in,” said Blair’s spokesman. “It is wrong. It is wrong in terms of the usual conventions that cover this. It is wrong in terms of basic humanity.”

The third Geneva Convention bans subjecting prisoners of war to intimidation, insults or “public curiosity.” Because there is no armed conflict between Iran and Britain, the captives would not technically be classified as prisoners of war.

Britain’s ambassador to Tehran lodged an official complaint today against Iran’s decision to show the footage, the Foreign Office said. Britain also demanded the “immediate release of all 15 personnel, information about their whereabouts and consular access as a prelude to their release.”

In Iraq, the Iranian consul in Basra charged that British soldiers today had surrounded his office and fired shots into the air.

The Ministry of Defence in London said the shooting was an exchange of gunfire after British troops on a foot patrol near the Iranian consulate were ambushed.

But Iranian Consul-General Mohammed Ridha Nasir Baghban said British forces had engaged in a “provocative act” that “could worsen the situation of the British sailors.”

“British forces should rely on wisdom and not react because of the British forces’ detention. This reflects negatively on bilateral relations,” Baghban said.

In London, Vice Adm. Charles Style said the British boats were seized at 29 degrees 50.36 minutes north latitude and 48 degrees 43.08 minutes east longitude. He said that position had been confirmed by an Indian-flagged merchant ship boarded by the sailors and marines.

But the position, outside the Shatt el-Arab waterway in the Gulf, is an area where no legal boundary exists, leaving it unclear whose territory it lies in, said Kaiyan Kaikobad, author of “The Shatt al-Arab Boundary Question.”

“What we do have is a de facto state practised boundary – a line both countries have been observing on the spot,” he said. “The problem is that though the British have drawn a line where they claim the de facto line is, we haven’t seen an Iranian version.”