Ooh, back on topic, tons more information here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6502947.stm
Describing both the negotiations to date and details of the exact circumstances.
Quote:
British apply 'ridicule' tactic
By Paul Reynolds
World Affairs correspondent, BBC News website
By revealing the evidence backing up its claim that British naval personnel held by Iran did not violate Iranian waters, the British government is trying to put the Iranian government on the defensive.
And by revealing that Iran changed its own claim about where the incident took place, the British are also trying to ridicule the Iranian position.
The British decision to go public with what they had previously presented to the Iranians in private came after the 15 captured sailors and marines remained in Iranian captivity.
British diplomats based in Tehran have been denied a consular visit so far. However, Britain has been assured that the prisoners are well.
In addition, Britain is to freeze contacts with Iran to this single issue.
The first tactic was to offer Iran an easy way out. The Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett gave the co-ordinates of the British sailors to the Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and suggested that there might have been a "mistake".
Iranian switch
Iran at first offered a different co-ordinate and then, when it was pointed out that even this was in Iraqi waters, another reading was given, this time on the Iranian side.
quote:
UK VERSION OF EVENTS
1 Crew boards merchant ship 1.7NM inside Iraqi waters
2 HMS Cornwall was south-east of this, and inside Iraqi waters
3 Iran tells UK that merchant ship was at a different point, still within Iraqi waters
4 After UK points this out, Iran provides corrected position, now within Iranian waters
|
However the initial quiet and discreet effort led nowhere, so a decision to escalate the issue was taken.
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons on Wednesday that it was "now time to ratchet up the diplomatic and international pressure" to show the Iranians that they were isolated.
Mr Blair has worked in particular through the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and is marshalling support from the EU, allies in the Gulf, the UN security council and from Iraq itself.
The United States is adopting a relatively quiet attitude, perhaps by agreement with London that a strong US position against Iran might not help.
GPS reading
The British evidence was based on a GPS read-out of the position where an Indian merchant ship was boarded by a British inspection party on Friday.
At a briefing for reporters at the Ministry of Defence in London, a quietly-spoken but precise Vice Admiral Charles Style, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, gave the co-ordinates, saying that the incident took place 1.7 nautical miles (3.14 kilometres) inside Iraqi waters.
The British coordinates were given as 29' 50.36" North and 048' 43.08" East. (Note: the reading on the photo at the top, taken from a helicopter over the ship still at anchor two days afterwards, is slightly different as the ship's captain said the anchor had dragged since the incident).
The coordinates given by Iran to the British were not detailed.
The admiral and a senior military officer, who spoke on the background afterwards, insisted that the British were in the right, as they were acting under Security Council resolution 1723 (which authorises the multinational force in Iraq) and with the approval of the Iraqi government in protecting its oil facilities, coast and shipping. There was no doubt where the dividing line was, it was said, despite historic disputes between Iran and Iraq over these waters.
Details given in the briefing indicate that the Iranian action was at least deliberate, though who ordered it is not known.
Outgunned
The officer at the Ministry of Defence justified the lack of reaction by the British personnel. Their rules of engagement, he said, were adequate for self defence but they were taken by surprise as they left the ship they had inspected.
Two Iranian boats with far heavier weapons - rocket launchers and heavy machine guns against rifles and pistols - came alongside after indicating a friendly attitude.
Communications were lost immediately and then the two British boats were escorted by the Iranians and about four other Iranian boats "swarmed" in.
Some gaps in British preparations were evident from what the officer said. A Lynx helicopter monitoring the boarding had returned to the mother ship HMS Cornwall, which could not get nearer because of shallow water, and by the time the Cornwall realised what has happening, the British were on the Iranian side.
Iranian boats had about "three minutes" according to the officer in which they made their approach, but nobody on the British side saw them.
Mr Blair said the attitude of the British personnel had been "entirely sensible". If they had fired , there would "undoubtedly have been severe loss of life".
Iranian attitudes
The Iranian reaction to this escalation remains to be seen. Under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran has not been afraid of confrontation. It is currently defying the UN Security Council on uranium enrichment and is under sanctions that were increased only last Saturday.
Mrs Beckett said that Iran had assured her that there was no linkage to other events, including presumably the detention of five Iranian officials by American forces in Iraq not long ago. Iran was saying that its territorial waters had been violated.
Iran, however, is concerned at threats of military action against it and might be wanting to show the readiness of its forces, especially the Revolutionary Guards which carried out this operation.
The British hope that Iran will now decide that it has made its point and let the personnel go. But that would require something of a climb-down by Iran which has claimed the right in this dispute.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/6502947.stm
Published: 2007/03/28 14:25:08 GMT
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