US manoeuvers 'not trying to provoke Iran'

US aircraft carrier groups are in the Persian Gulf not to provoke Tehran but to reassure friendly governments in the area, the Bush administration has emphasised.

“It remains an area of vital importance to us,” Under-secretary of State Nicholas Burns said in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“We are not there to provoke any military conflict,” Mr Burns said.

“Diplomacy is our preferred course of action in blocking and containing the Iranian regime,” he said while renewing an offer to hold talks with Iran about its nuclear programme if Iran should temporarily suspend uranium enrichment.

The United States would suspend its sanctions against Iran for the same negotiating period, Burns said.

“I do not believe a military confrontation with Iran is either desirable or inevitable,” he said. “If we continue our skilful diplomatic course and have the patience to see it play out over the long term, I am confident we can avoid conflict and see our strategy succeed.”

American commanders have rejected any suggestion that US manoeuvres in the Gulf were a direct response to Iran’s capture last Friday of 15 British sailors and marines. Iran claims the British violated Iranian waters several times before they were detained.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, meanwhile, that Iran should release the Britons if it wanted to show it is a responsible state.

“The Iranians do themselves no favour by doing things like holding the British soldiers, the British sailors, and parading them on television,” Ms Rice said on the Fox News Channel.

“It just reminds everyone what a difficult state they are and what a danger they are to the international system,” she said.

Ms Rice said she did not want to try to judge what was in the Iranians’ minds when the British sailors and Marines were captured. “I just want to try to affect their behaviour,” she said.

On Tuesday, 15 US warships and more than 100 US aircraft participated in the largest show of force in the Gulf since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The dispute heightened already high tensions centred on Iran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment and approval by the UN Security Council last Saturday of a second round of sanctions to punish Iran.