Fresh talks over seized sailors
A Foreign Office minister held fresh crisis talks with the Iranian ambassador today in a bid to secure the release of 15 Royal Navy personnel.
Lord Triesman spent more than an hour demanding the safe return of the sailors and Royal Marines seized by patrol boats off the coast of Iraq yesterday.
He also used the talks – described as “frank and civil” – to seek assurances about the group’s welfare and to allow them to be seen by consular staff.
The Foreign Office would not confirm reports that they had been transferred to the capital Tehran for questioning.
It is the second time the ambassador Rasoul Movahedian has been summoned to explain Iran’s actions in what is a potentially dangerous diplomatic crisis.
Iran has accused the Navy of a “blatant aggression into Iranian territorial waters”.
However, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and the Ministry of Defence are adamant that the troops were in Iraqi waters at the time.
The latest talks come as the United Nations is set to agree new sanctions against Iran over its refusal to abandon work on producing enriched uranium needed to build a bomb.
It has raised suspicions that the snatching of the sailors and Marines could be part of a bid to put pressure on the UK over the nuclear issue.
Plans for Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the UN Security Council in New York today were cancelled amid claims – denied by the US – that visas had been obstructed.
The Naval boarding party, from the Type 22 frigate HMS Cornwall, was taken at gunpoint by the Iranians after carrying out a routine search of a large cargo dhow which they suspected of smuggling in the northern Persian Gulf.
The group of eight sailors and seven Marines is believed to include at least one woman, sources said last night.
The US 5th Fleet, which operates with British forces off Iraq, said the capture was carried out by Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval forces off the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway which divides Iran and Iraq.
Mrs Beckett said yesterday that the regime in Tehran had been left “in no doubt that we want the immediate and safe return of our personnel and their equipment”.
The seizure of the boarding party carried echoes of an incident in June 2004 when a party of eight Marines and sailors were held for three days after being seized by the Iranians in the Shatt al-Arab.
And it has also coincided with fresh claims of Iranian interference in Iraq.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said: “The Iranian Government should be left in no doubt that Britain’s determination through the United Nations to prevent Iran acquiring a military nuclear capability will remain undiminished by the illegitimate abduction of our forces.
“The United Kingdom will not be blackmailed. Iran has a choice: to act responsibly; or face greater isolation.”
