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UK sailors: Crisis grows
28/03/2007 14:25 - (SA)
London - Britain on Wednesday froze all contacts with Iran as a dispute over 15 detained sailors intensified with Prime Minister Tony Blair vowing to step up pressure on the Islamic Republic.
Britain produced evidence which it said proved that the sailors and marines were in Iraqi waters when detained last Friday in the Gulf. Iran insisted the Britons were in its territory.
Turkey said meanwhile that its diplomats might be allowed to see the 14 men and one woman who are being kept at a secret location despite international calls for Iran to free them.
"We will ... be imposing a freeze on all other official bilateral business with Iran" until the navy personnel are released, foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said in a statement to lawmakers on the crisis.
A few minutes earlier, Blair emphasised British determination in the dispute.
"It is now time to ratchet up the diplomatic and international pressure" on Tehran, Blair told parliament, adding that "there was no justification whatever" for the detention of the Britons.
'It was completely unacceptable, wrong and illegal'
"These personnel were patrolling in Iraqi waters under a United Nations mandate. Their boarding and checking of the Indian merchant vessel was routine. There was no justification whatever, therefore, for their detention," Blair told lawmakers.
"It was completely unacceptable, wrong and illegal," he said.
The prime minister said Britain was in contact with "all our key allies" over the dispute and to "step up the pressure" on the Iranian government to release the captured Britons.
British military chiefs used maps and GPS co-ordinates to argue that the navy personnel were 1.7 nautical miles (3.15km) within Iraqi waters at the northern end of the Gulf.
"The action by Iranian forces in arresting and detaining our people is unjustified and wrong. As such it is a matter of deep concern to us," vice-admiral Charles Style, deputy chief of the defence staff, told reporters.
In its presentation, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) "unambiguously" contested the co-ordinates provided by Tehran for where the interception took place.
In a statement received by Sky News television, the Iranian embassy in London responded by insisting that the British personnel had "illegally entered" Iranian territorial waters.
A stumbling block
"This was a violation of (an) international border ... an intrusive act justified their detention," the statement said.
London argues that the eight sailors and seven marines were conducting "routine" anti-smuggling operations when they were seized at gunpoint.
Diplomatic efforts seemed to have hit a stumbling block on Tuesday when Beckett cut short a visit to Turkey to brief parliament on the standoff, having got nowhere in talks with her Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.
British Home Secretary John Reid, a former defence secretary, said the situation was delicate and "very dangerous".
"Let's just hope we get a speedy and a satisfactory resolution to this," Reid told Sky News television.
- AFP
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