February 11, 2009 5:09 PM
- Text
Iran: Captured British Sailors "Confess"
(CBS/AP)
The Iranian military questioned 15 detained British sailors Saturday and said they confessed to illegally entering the country's territorial waters, as Iran accused Britain of "blatant aggression."
Britain has demanded the return of the sailors and denied they had strayed into Iranian waters while searching for smugglers off Iraq's coast.
The Britons were brought to Tehran for questioning, and a top military official, Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, said they "confessed to illegal entry into Iran's waters."
"The said personnel are being interrogated and have confessed to aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran waters," Afshar was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency.
"The detention of British sailors and marines by the Iranian government is a clear escalation of Iran's defiant approach to the international community and has the potential of escalating to a military confrontation with so many U.S. and British troops and aircraft carriers in the Gulf," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk from the U.N. Saturday.
"The detention of British military personnel appears timed to distract from the Security Council vote against Iran today, particularly since the waterway in which they were taken into custody is an area of long dispute between Iran and Iraq and the border difficult to distinguish."
The eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Royal Marines had just searched a merchant ship when they and their two inflatable boats were intercepted by Iranian vessels Friday at around 10:30 a.m. near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, U.S. and British officials said. The Iranian vessels surrounded them and escorted them away at gunpoint.
Navigational equipment on the seized British boats "show that they (sailors) were aware that they were operating in Iranian waters and Iranian border guards fulfilled their responsibility," Fars quoted an unidentified official as saying.
The agency said the 15 included "some women." In Britain, officials told the Press Association news agency that at least one woman was among the group.
U.S. and British officials said the incident occurred during a routine inspection of a merchant ship near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, which flows between the two countries and empties into the Gulf. The inspections were part of an ongoing operation to intercept smugglers, insurgents and terrorists, and to protect Iraqi oil terminals, CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reports.
The inspection went without a hitch and the British inflatable rafts that the service members use were on the way back to their mother ship when six Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval vessels surrounded them, Pizzey reports.
The incident came at a time of heightened tensions over Tehran's nuclear ambitions and allegations that Iran is arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq, but Britain was treating it as a mistake rather than a provocation.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Iran was carrying out a "further investigation ... of the blatant aggression."
"Violating the sovereign boundaries of other states and illegal entry denote unusual goals in violation of international commitments, the responsibility for which cannot be evaded under any justification," Hosseini said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
Hosseini described the incident as a "suspicious move" and accused Britain of trying to cover up the illegal entry.
"The British officials instead of making up for their blunders should try to refrain from putting the blame on others by way of irrelevant interpretations," he said.
Iran summoned the British charge d'affaires to the Foreign Ministry on Friday and demanded an immediate explanation.
Britain, in turn, demanded Tehran release the 15. In London, the British government summoned the Iranian ambassador to the Foreign Office, and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the Iranian envoy "was left in no doubt that we want them back."
Britain's Defense Ministry said the Royal Navy personnel were in Iraqi territorial waters when they were seized. Cmdr Kevin Aandahl of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain also said it was "very clear" they were in Iraqi waters.
"We've been on operations there for several years," Aandahl said. He said coalition vessels respect a 1975 treaty between Iran and Iraq that sets the boundary between the two countries as running down the middle of the Shatt al-Arab.
But the boundary has long been in dispute around the 125-mile-long channel Shatt al-Arab — known in Iran as Arvandrud, Farsi for the Arvand River. Saddam Hussein canceled the 1975 treaty five years later and invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war. Virtually all of Iraq's oil is exported through an oil terminal near the mouth of the channel.
Britain has demanded the return of the sailors and denied they had strayed into Iranian waters while searching for smugglers off Iraq's coast.
The Britons were brought to Tehran for questioning, and a top military official, Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, said they "confessed to illegal entry into Iran's waters."
"The said personnel are being interrogated and have confessed to aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran waters," Afshar was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency.
"The detention of British sailors and marines by the Iranian government is a clear escalation of Iran's defiant approach to the international community and has the potential of escalating to a military confrontation with so many U.S. and British troops and aircraft carriers in the Gulf," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk from the U.N. Saturday.
"The detention of British military personnel appears timed to distract from the Security Council vote against Iran today, particularly since the waterway in which they were taken into custody is an area of long dispute between Iran and Iraq and the border difficult to distinguish."
The eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Royal Marines had just searched a merchant ship when they and their two inflatable boats were intercepted by Iranian vessels Friday at around 10:30 a.m. near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, U.S. and British officials said. The Iranian vessels surrounded them and escorted them away at gunpoint.
Navigational equipment on the seized British boats "show that they (sailors) were aware that they were operating in Iranian waters and Iranian border guards fulfilled their responsibility," Fars quoted an unidentified official as saying.
The agency said the 15 included "some women." In Britain, officials told the Press Association news agency that at least one woman was among the group.
U.S. and British officials said the incident occurred during a routine inspection of a merchant ship near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, which flows between the two countries and empties into the Gulf. The inspections were part of an ongoing operation to intercept smugglers, insurgents and terrorists, and to protect Iraqi oil terminals, CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reports.
The inspection went without a hitch and the British inflatable rafts that the service members use were on the way back to their mother ship when six Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval vessels surrounded them, Pizzey reports.
The incident came at a time of heightened tensions over Tehran's nuclear ambitions and allegations that Iran is arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq, but Britain was treating it as a mistake rather than a provocation.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Iran was carrying out a "further investigation ... of the blatant aggression."
"Violating the sovereign boundaries of other states and illegal entry denote unusual goals in violation of international commitments, the responsibility for which cannot be evaded under any justification," Hosseini said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
Hosseini described the incident as a "suspicious move" and accused Britain of trying to cover up the illegal entry.
"The British officials instead of making up for their blunders should try to refrain from putting the blame on others by way of irrelevant interpretations," he said.
Iran summoned the British charge d'affaires to the Foreign Ministry on Friday and demanded an immediate explanation.
Britain, in turn, demanded Tehran release the 15. In London, the British government summoned the Iranian ambassador to the Foreign Office, and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the Iranian envoy "was left in no doubt that we want them back."
Britain's Defense Ministry said the Royal Navy personnel were in Iraqi territorial waters when they were seized. Cmdr Kevin Aandahl of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain also said it was "very clear" they were in Iraqi waters.
"We've been on operations there for several years," Aandahl said. He said coalition vessels respect a 1975 treaty between Iran and Iraq that sets the boundary between the two countries as running down the middle of the Shatt al-Arab.
But the boundary has long been in dispute around the 125-mile-long channel Shatt al-Arab — known in Iran as Arvandrud, Farsi for the Arvand River. Saddam Hussein canceled the 1975 treaty five years later and invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war. Virtually all of Iraq's oil is exported through an oil terminal near the mouth of the channel.
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