Britain, Iran Edge Toward Diplomacy

The British government said Monday that it and Iran shared the goal of "early bilateral discussions" to end the crisis over a captured British naval crew, after a senior Iranian official said Tehran did not plan to put the sailors and marines on trial.

Britain was responding to remarks by Iran's chief international negotiator, Ali Larijani, who said Iran sought "to solve the problem through proper diplomatic channels."

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "There remain some differences between us, but we can confirm we share his preference for early bilateral discussions to find a diplomatic solution to this problem."

"We will be following this up with the Iranian authorities tomorrow [Tuesday], given our shared desire to make early progress," she said, speaking on the government's customary condition of anonymity.

Britain and Iran each struck a conciliatory note Monday in the then 11-day standoff over 15 sailors and marines captured in the Persian Gulf. Larijani told Britain's Channel 4 News that Iran was "not interested in letting this issue get further complicated" and had no plans to put the captured crew on trial.

"We definitely believe that this issue can be resolved and there is no need for any trial," Larijani said through an interpreter.

Larijani said Iran was seeking a quick conclusion to the crisis, which began when the British crew was captured by Iranian forces in the Persian Gulf on March 23. They were detained while patrolling for smugglers near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab, a waterway that has long been a disputed dividing line between Iraq and Iran.

But neither British officials nor former CIA officer Bruce Reidel expect an immediate end to the standoff, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

"This will end when the Iranians come to the conclusion they've milked it for everything they can get — and that could be months, if not longer, from now," Reidel said.

Tehran says the crew was in Iranian waters. Britain insists its troops were in Iraqi waters working under a U.N. mandate.

In a hint that the two sides were easing toward compromise, a British official said Monday that Britain was willing to talk to Tehran about ways of avoiding disputes over contested waters in the Gulf.

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told CBS' The Early Show he wouldn't read too much into the report on Iranian radio. "I think we have to assume they're going to keep them a while longer and try to get something out of this."

O'Hanlon said Iran may be holding onto the British troops as the result of "some misplaced belief that this will help them in the nuclear standoff" with the West, over Tehran's secretive uranium enrichment program. The United Nations Security Council, including Britain, has approved two sanctions packages against Tehran in the nuclear dispute.

But, O'Hanlon said, "They could just be doing this out of their own nationalistic ideology."

In a letter sent in response to a note from Iranian officials, Britain agreed to consider discussing how to avoid such situations in the future, a British official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. But Britain is not "negotiating" with Iran and it wants the release to be unconditional, the official said.

Britain's response — most of which has been kept secret — may have prompted a softening of tone from Tehran. On Monday, state-run radio claimed there had been "positive changes" in Britain's diplomatic stance.

Larijani said Britain should give "a guarantee ... that such violation will not be repeated," but stopped short of calling for an apology from Britain as a condition for the captives' release.

He suggested a delegation be sent "to review the case, to clarify the case, first of all — to clarify whether they have been in our territorial waters at all." He did not say who might be in such a delegation.

Video footage has shown four of the British crew saying they were captured in Iranian waters. In footage aired Sunday, two of the sailors used maps to show the alleged location where they were seized. Iran has said the others have also confessed.

"The Iranians know our position, they know that stage-managed TV appearances are not going to affect our position," Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy. "They know we have strong international support."

Last week, Britain suspended all other diplomatic contacts, freezing work to support trade missions and the issuing of visas to Iranian diplomats.

In Tehran on Sunday, about 200 students threw rocks and firecrackers at the British Embassy on Sunday, calling for the expulsion of ambassador Geoffrey Adams.

The protesters chanted "death to Britain" and "death to America" as they hurled stones into the embassy's courtyard. Britain's Foreign Office said nobody was hurt and there had been no damage to the compound.

In London, a handful of demonstrators protested outside the Iranian Embassy, waving placards saying "Let them go, Iran" and "Honk for the hostages."

The Muslim Council of Britain, the country's largest Islamic umbrella group, said it has written the Iranian ambassador in London asking that the crew be freed.