Britain said on Tuesday the way was open for diplomacy to secure the release of 15 British sailors and marines seized by Iran in the Gulf, but the next 48 hours would be critical.
The two countries have been at loggerheads since Iran seized the sailors on March 23 in the northern Gulf, but there have been few tangible signs of progress in the 12-day stand-off.
Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on Monday he believed bilateral diplomacy could resolve the crisis quickly. Britain responded by saying it too would like early talks to end the row.
”This is a very critical time and the most important thing is that we get our people back safe and sound and that is what we are working for,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.
”The next few days are obviously going to be vital,” he told reporters.
Oil prices tumbled nearly $2 on hopes there may be a diplomatic end to the crisis that has stoked fears that supplies from the Gulf could be hit.
United States President George Bush said the tensions over Iran, the world’s fourth-biggest oil exporter, had ”spooked” global crude oil prices.
The dispute centres on where the sailors were when they were seized. Britain insists they were in Iraqi waters on a routine United Nations mission, but Tehran says they were in its territory.
”We can definitely see a diplomatic solution on the horizon,” said Ali Ansari, director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.
”It’s seems to me that what is in the offing is a delegation of some sort will go to Tehran, to basically also reassure the Iranians that there will be a mechanism in place to ensure that this will not happen again.”
Experts in international borders say territorial sea boundaries between Iran and Iraq are poorly defined, which may give Britain and Iran room to ”agree to disagree”.
Diplomat freed
British moves to get the international community to condemn Iran had angered Tehran while Britain has criticised the parading of its military personnel on Iranian television, saying the broadcast admissions of guilt had been forced.
Iran said on Tuesday the row could be resolved soon if London continued its ”changed behaviour” and accepted its sailors and marines had entered Iran illegally.
Larijani left the door open for discussion about whether the sailors had strayed into Iranian waters by saying a ”delegation” should be sent to clarify the issue once and for all.
Bush said Iran’s seizure of the sailors was ”indefensible” and there should be no conditions for their release.
Iraq’s foreign minister confirmed on Tuesday that an Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Baghdad had been freed. It said the Iraqi government was also trying to secure the release of five Iranians detained by US forces in northern Iraq in January.
Some analysts say Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who seized the British sailors, may have been acting to send a message that Iran would not sit by while its citizens were detained in Iraq.
The Fars News Agency, considered close to the Revolutionary Guards, released a new picture of the detainees on Tuesday showing a group of six in tracksuits sitting on an Iranian carpet, some smiling and apparently chatting.
Iran’s anti-Western President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who beat Larijani in the 2005 presidential race, will talk about the detained sailors on Wednesday, according to Iranian television.
Western diplomats say — and even some Iranian officials privately admit — Larijani’s negotiating efforts in the past on Iran’s nuclear programme were sometimes hijacked by anti-Western statements by Ahmadinejad.
Under the Islamic Republic’s system of clerical rule, policy is ultimately decided by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But analysts say he seeks a consensus, giving room for rival factions to battle for influence. Khamenei has not yet made any public comment on the case. — Reuters