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Iran postpones talks on British sailors
The release of eight British sailors has been postponed at least until Thursday, Iranian state television reported Wednesday, contradicting reports that the men were already freed.
There was no immediate clarification. Hours earlier, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told The Associated Press the eight Britons had been released.
Iran's Arabic-language TV channel Al-Alam broadcast an urgent evening report that said: "The second round of talks on the British detainees is postponed until tomorrow, Thursday."
The station had earlier reported that the sailors' release could be delayed to Thursday. It said British and Iranian officials had been negotiating in the southwest Iranian town of Mahshahr near the place where the Britons were detained.
In London, the British Foreign Office said it had not been told officially that the release had been delayed to Thursday. A British diplomat said, however, that a delay was possible because it was already nighttime in Iran.
Earlier Wednesday, the Foreign Office said three British diplomats were traveling from Tehran to Abadan, a port city 30 miles east of the Iraqi city of Basra, to receive the six Royal Marines and two sailors.
Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman had said that Tehran told Britain the men would be freed Wednesday.
The men were detained in the Shatt al-Arab waterway as they were delivering a patrol boat for the new Iraqi river patrol service. The waterway is known in Iran as the Arvand River.
A top military official said the sailors were being released because their intrusion into Iran's waters was apparently a mistake.
After their capture, the sailors were shown on Iranian television blindfolded and seated cross-legged on the ground.
"My name is Sgt. Thomas Harkins from the British Royal Marines. I do apologize for entering Iranian territorial waters," one said on Al-Alam, an Arabic-language station, reading from a prepared text.
The broadcast also showed the patrol boats and weapons it said had been confiscated from the sailors.
Iran had earlier said the men would be prosecuted.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman told AP that Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi played a key role in resolving the minor border incident that had threatened to turn into a major diplomatic crisis.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had called Kharrazi on Tuesday to ask for the release of the sailors.
The waterway, Iraq's main link with the Persian Gulf that divides Iran and Iraq, has long been a source of tension between the neighbors. The 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war broke out after Saddam Hussein claimed the entire waterway.
Iran said the British vessels were about a half-mile inside Iranian territorial waters. British-Iranian relations have run hot and cold for years. The detentions follow a fresh strain after 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 says its program is aimed only at producing energy, while the United States accuses Tehran of trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran accused Britain, which it had seen as a partner in the investigation into its nuclear activities, of caving in to U.S. pressure. Iranians repeatedly demonstrated in front of the British Embassy in Tehran last month, throwing stones at the building to protest the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Britain is America's main coalition partner in Iraq. Protesters also condemned war damage to Shiite holy shrines in Iraq, demanded the expulsion of the British ambassador to Tehran and called for the embassy to be closed. British-Iranian ties also were strained in 1989 when the founder of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against British author Salman Rushdie. In 1998, the Iranian government declared it would not support the fatwa and the two countries exchanged ambassadors in 1999. In 2002, Iran rejected a British candidate for ambassador, claiming he was a Jewish spy. A year later, shots were fired at the British Embassy in Tehran, after Britain briefly held an Iranian diplomat accused of helping to mastermind the car bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina. Iran has expressed pleasure over the toppling of Saddam, but has strongly opposed deployment of U.S.-led coalition forces on its borders. |
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