Iran to Prosecute British Crewmen
June 22, 2004
Iranian state-run television reported on Tuesday that the British crewmen will be prosecuted for illegally entering Iranian territorial waters. "The vessels were 1,000 meters inside Iranian waters. The crew have also confessed to having entered Iranian waters," the broadcast said.
On Monday, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards impounded the three British military boats and detained the eight crewmen in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, near the Persian Gulf.
The British Defense Ministry said the crewmen were detained while delivering a boat from Umm Qasr to Basra, for use by the new Iraqi Riverine Patrol Service. The ministry said the men were from the Royal Navy training team based in southern Iraq. It added that the boats were unarmed but that the crew were carrying their personal weapons. Britain has been providing coastal defence training to Iraqi personnel for the past several weeks.
The British Foreign Office said Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has spoken to Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi about the incident.
Site of past tensions
The Shatt-al-Arab waterway is Iraq's main link with the Persian Gulf, which divides Iran and Iraq. It has long been a source of tension between the two neighbors. The 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war broke out after former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, claimed the entire waterway.
Last year, Iran bitterly opposed the war to oust Saddam. The fact that Britain was the main coalition partner along with the United States has strained diplomatic relations between Teheran and London, as have recent British suspicions that Iran is operating a secret nuclear weapons program.
London helped draft a resolution rebuking Iran for past nuclear cover-ups at last week's meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors. Iran responded that Britain was caving into U.S. pressure over the resolution. On Monday, the U.S. reiterated its demand for Iran to prove that it doesn't have a nuclear weapons programme.