The British government’s attempts to resolve a deepening diplomatic row with Iran over the capture of British sailors and marines were poised on a knife edge on Tuesday night after a day in which two of the men appeared in blindfolds on Iranian television and apologised for entering the country’s territorial waters.
The men were arrested on Monday on the Shatt al-Arab waterway dividing Iran and Iraq.
”Our team of three boats and eight crew entered Iranian waters by mistake. We apologise because this was a big mistake,” one of the men, who identified himself as Sergeant Thomas Hawkins of the Royal Marines, said, according to a translation of the Arabic voice-over provided by al-Alam satellite television news channel.
He said he had been arrested by Iranian revolutionary guards.
Chief Petty Officer Robert Webster, reading from a prepared text, said: ”The Iranian revolutionary guards stopped us in Iranian territorial waters. We accidentally entered Iranian waters.”
The Foreign Office on Tuesday night described the apparent confessions, and earlier television footage showing the eight men blindfolded, as ”deeply concerning”.
Earlier, pictures on Iran’s main state-run channel, showed the men sitting silently on chairs and a sofa. Three of them were in British military uniform; five others wore military trousers and civilian T-shirts.
In a day of mixed messages from the Iranians, the al-Alam station described an Iranian officer as saying: ”Their weapons, instruments, large equipment, machine guns and submachine guns, and the flag of their special naval unit indicate that they are not regular sailors.”
Later, Ali Reza Afshar, the deputy head of the Iranian armed forces, said that if the interrogations showed that the men ”didn’t have any bad intention, they will be released soon”.
Iran’s ISNA news agency, quoting ”unofficial sources”, said the revolutionary guards had been ordered to free the men. The Iranian foreign ministry contradicted al-Alam reports that the men would be prosecuted.
In London, the Ministry of Defence denied that the men were members of the special forces. It said they were delivering the boats from the port of Umm Qasr to Basra for the newly formed Iraqi river police.
”The boats are unarmed, but the crews were carrying their personal weapons,” the MoD said. However, defence sources admit that the boats could have strayed into Iranian waters in bad weather.
Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, on Tuesday telephoned his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharrazi, to ask for the release of the sailors. The Foreign Office said Kharrazi promised to look into the case.
Iran’s ambassador to Britain, Morteza Sarmadi, was summoned to see the FO’s political director, John Sawers, to explain why Iran had arrested the men who were on a ”routine mission”.
A spokesperson for the British embassy in Tehran said British diplomats had requested permission to visit the detained men. ”We have asked for full details on who is holding them, where they are and for access to them,” she said.
The British ambassador, Richard Dalton, was in talks with the Iranian authorities over the incident.
British officials on Tuesday night said that while Iranian officials had made some ”positive noises”, these had been gleaned from reports in the media rather than through official diplomatic channels.
Most commentators on Tuesday said the way the incident was being handled by Tehran reflected differences between the hardline revolutionary guards and the more moderate government.
Others said that the Iranian government itself might have seized the opportunity to make the point — not least to the new Iraqi interim govern ment which takes office on July 1 — that it regards the issue of the oft-disputed border with Iraq along the Shatt al-Arab as extremely serious.
A commentary on Iran’s state-run radio on Tuesday said the British vessels ”openly violated a recognised border treaty”, and that Iran was sending a ”message to countries disrupting stability in the Persian Gulf”.
While Tehran welcomed the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime, it is deeply worried about the continuing presence of US troops in Iraq. It is also embroiled in a dispute with the US, the EU, and the UN over its nuclear programme.
Britain has criticised Iran over nuclear inspections, while Tehran has accused Britain of caving in to American pressure over the issue.
Iranians repeatedly demonstrated in front of the British embassy in Tehran last month, throwing stones at the building to protest at the US-led occupation of Iraq. – Guardian Unlimited Â