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UK in dark over seized sailors
25/03/2007 13:02 - (SA)
London - International pressure mounted on Iran on Sunday to free 15 British naval personnel but British authorities admitted they do not know where the group are being held.
The British ambassador in Tehran again demanded the release of the eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Royal Marines but got no response, officials said.
The 14 men and one woman were seized on the Shatt al-Arab waterway that divides Iraq and Iran on Friday. Britain says they were conducting "routine" anti-smuggling operations. Iran said Saturday that the group has admitted illegally entering Iranian waters.
"We don't know where they are. We wish we did. We are asking whether they are being moved around inside Iran," Lord David Triesman, a foreign office junior minister, said in an interview with Sky News television.
The British ambassador to Tehran, Geoffrey Adams, met senior officials at the Iranian foreign ministry on Sunday to seek the freedom of the group, a foreign office spokesperson in London told AFP.
Adams "pressed again for the release of our personnel, asked where they are being held and for consular access", he added.
Iran's foreign ministry provided no immediate response and further meetings were a possibility, he added.
Triesman again denied that the group from HMS Cornwall had deliberately entered Iranian territory.
"We've been very clear throughout that the British sailors don't intentionally enter into Iranian waters," he said. "There's no reason for them to do so. We don't intend to do so and I think people should accept that there's good faith in that assertion."
On Saturday, the Germany presidency of the European Union called for their "immediate release" and said Germany's ambassador to Tehran had also spoken with the Iranian government about the matter.
Iran's ambassador to London has twice been summoned to the foreign office. On Friday he met a senior civil servant and Triesman on Saturday.
Triesman said Britain wanted the Iranians to reassure the group's families that they were in good health and unharmed.
The group's seizure comes three years after eight British Royal Navy personnel training their Iraqi counterparts on the same stretch of waterway were detained for three days by Iran.
- AFP
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