British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday denounced Iran for the “unjustified and wrong” seizure of 15 British sailors and marines, rejecting Tehran’s claim they had entered Iranian waters, and warning that the situation had become very serious.
“I hope the Iranian government understands how fundamental an issue this is for us,” Blair said at a European summit in Berlin. “They should not be under any doubt at all about how seriously we regard this act, which was unjustified and wrong.”
Blair’s comments marked a hardening of British tone, after hopes that the capture of the British patrol on Friday would prove to be a misunderstanding had been dashed by statements from Iran over the weekend.
A senior military official, General Ali Reza Afshar, said on Saturday that the patrol had “confessed” to the incursion, and claimed the Britons had been taken to Tehran. Other sources hinted they might be put on trial.
Initially, British military officials and diplomats tried to defuse the situation by stressing the complicated nature of the boundaries between Iraq and Iran on the Shatt al-Arab waterway, where the patrol had been conducting anti-smuggling operations. But Blair’s declaration left no room for ambiguity.
“This is a very serious situation and there is no doubt at all that these people were taken from a boat in Iraqi waters,” he said. “It is simply not true that they went into Iranian territorial waters.”
Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, continued the diplomatic pressure on Sunday night when she spoke to the Iranian Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki.
In a phone conversation, she made “very clear” that no violation of Iranian waters had occurred. She repeated demands for information on the whereabouts of the 15 and for consular access to them.
Mottaki is in New York where the United Nations imposed fresh sanctions on Iran.
In response to the sanctions, Iran last night announced that it was partially suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the latest sanctions would not halt the country’s nuclear enrichment “even for a second”.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said Beckett’s talks were confined to the issue of the seized military personnel.
Britain’s ambassador to Tehran, Geoffrey Adams, on Sunday met Iranian foreign ministry officials to find out where the 15 captives — 14 men and a woman — were being held.
British officials said that the meeting, the second in two days, was at Britain’s request, but it was portrayed on the Iranian media as a summons and a dressing-down by Iran’s foreign ministry.
Britain has not been able confirm reports that the group had been taken to Tehran.
Foreign Office Minister David Triesman told Sky News on Sunday: “We don’t know where [they are], and I wish we did. We are asking to know whether they are being moved around inside Iran. We have been insisting that they should be released immediately; there is no reason to hold them.”
Triesman added: “These things are always very difficult. They are delicate discussions. My belief is that they will come to a good outcome, but you can never be certain.”
British officials would not comment on Sunday on a report in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, quoting an unnamed military source “close to” the elite al-Quds brigade of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as saying the seizure of the two-boat British patrol had been planned at a high level days in advance.
The aim, said the report, was to take captives to exchange for senior al-Quds officers arrested by United States forces in Irbil, Iraq, earlier in the year.
Triesman said Britain had been given assurances its sailors and marines the patrol were not being held hostage for political reasons, and another British official said: “For the time being, we are treating this as an isolated incident.”
War of words
The EU on Sunday attempted to reopen talks with Iran over its nuclear programme in the wake of new sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, targeting Iranian arms sales and hard-line Revolutionary Guards leaders.
Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, said he would try to call Iranian lead negotiator Ari Larijani “to see if we can find a route that would allow us to go into negotiations”.
Iran and the west looked as far apart as ever after a unanimous Security Council vote to impose tougher sanctions because of Iran’s refusal to stop enriching uranium, and its seizure of a British naval patrol.
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, denounced the vote as an attempt to coerce Iran into suspension of its peaceful nuclear programme”. “I can assure you that pressure and intimidation will not change Iranian policy,” he told the Security Council.
Iran insists its programme is peaceful but the West suspects it is for nuclear weapons. – Guardian Unlimited Â