Blair to Iran: free captives in days

Category people, Politics | Permalink | 26. March 2007

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BRITAIN’S crisis with Iran deepened yesterday as Tony Blair warned Tehran it has only a few days to release 15 captured British sailors and marines, as a US commander in the Gulf criticised the British for not opening fire on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who seized them.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett spoke by telephone yesterday with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and repeated that the British sailors and marines were operating in Iraqi waters as they searched for smugglers at sea.She asked that British diplomats be allowed to meet the captured sailors, and demanded their safe return. In Jerusalem, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also called for their release.

Mr Mottaki said Iran had already provided British officials with full details, including the GPS co-ordinates, of the servicemen’s arrest. “The charge against them is their illegal entrance into Iranian territorial waters,” Mr Mottaki told a press conference in New York.

The British sailors were seized at gunpoint on Friday as they searched for smugglers off the Iraqi coast, and Iran said they had illegally entered Iranian waters.

Israeli analysts said yesterday Iran chose to target British forces rather than Americans because of the harsh reaction that could be expected from Washington.

A US military commander in the Gulf said yesterday American naval personnel would have opened fire on the Iranians in similar circumstances.

Lieutenant Commander Erik Horner, second-in-command on the USS Underwood in the Gulf, said: “I don’t want to second-guess the British after the fact, but our rules of engagement allow a little more latitude. Our boarding team’s training is a little bit more towards self-preservation.

“The unique US Navy rules of engagement say we not only have a right to self-defence but also an obligation to self-defence.

“They had every right, in my mind, every justification to defend themselves rather than allow themselves to be taken. Our reaction was, ‘Why didn’t your guys defend themselves?”‘

Asked whether the men under his command would have fired at the Iranians, Commander Horner said: “Agreed. Yes.”

However, the British ambassador to Tehran was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to explain why the 15 service personnel in two inflatable boats had strayed into Iranian territorial waters.

“The Iranian authorities intercepted these sailors and marines in Iranian waters and detained them in Iranian waters,” Mr Mottaki said. “This has happened in the past as well. In legal issues, it’s under investigation.”

His comments were seen as a direct rebuff to the British Prime Minister, who only hours earlier had described the seizure of the British service personnel as “unjustified and wrong” and demanded their speedy release.

“This is a very serious situation and there is no doubt at all that these people were taken from a boat in Iraqi waters,” Mr Blair said. “It is simply not true that they went into Iranian territorial waters, and I hope the Iranian Government understands how fundamental an issue this is for us.

“We have certainly sent these messages back to them very clearly indeed. I hope this can be resolved over the next few days, but the quicker it is resolved the easier it’ll be for all of us.

“The Iranians should not be in any doubt over how seriously we take this act, which was unjustified and wrong.”

Source and More : www.theaustralian.news.com.au

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