Motive for Iran's seizure of British vessels debated
Is incident connected to UN resolution 'deploring' Iran's cooperation on nuclear inspections?
British diplomats
hope Iran's seizure of three Royal Navy vessels and eight commandos in the Shatt al-Arab waterway on Monday "was simply the work of an over-zealous local commander" from the Revolutionary Guards and "not retaliation for last week's [UN] resolution" condemning the Islamic republic for non-cooperation with the UN's nuclear agency, reports
The Times of London (subscription).
The incident comes at a time of
heightened tension between Britain and Iran, mostly over the war in Iraq and Iran's nuclear capabilities, reports the
Independent.
Royal Navy sources, reports the
Times said:
'No shots were fired' after a heavily armed Revolutionary Guard patrol boat crew ordered the British vessels to follow them to the coastline. The marines agreed to be 'guided' to the Iranian shore where they were taken away for interrogation. The sources said there appeared to have been a navigational error [on location of Iraq boundary].
Monday's incident has led to "speculation that the
seizure was intended to remind the coalition that Iran's cooperation on Iraq is not to be taken for granted," reports the
Washington Post. "Britain was a sponsor of an
IAEA resolution Friday in which the UN organization said it 'deplores' Iran's erratic cooperation with nuclear inspectors." British MP and shadow foreign minister Gary Streeter, said that the Iranians were using the team as a "'
bargaining chip' to escape action over the report," reported the
Evening Herald. He said: "We will keep the pressure on the government to keep pressure on the Iranians to secure their release."
British small boat patrols
regularly run along the Shatt al-Arab waterway, "to prevent militant incursions and the smuggling out of oil from southern Iraq," where British forces routinely assist the Iraqi water police, reports the
Guardian. The riverine team, formed in July last year, is made up of Royal Navy and Royal Marine personnel seconded from UK units. They are "training ex-Iraqi Navy personnel to operate river security patrols in southern Iraq."
Certain to
complicate diplomatic matters,
Al Bawaba reported that
Al-Alam, an Arabic-language satellite channel and a branch of Iran's state television, quoted Iranian military sources Tuesday morning that the British marines "are going to be prosecuted for illegally entering Iranian territorial waters. They were 1,000 meters inside Iranian territorial waters."
The station said the soldiers... whose three boats were seized by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, had already 'confessed' to having entered Iranian waters.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said that "
interrogation of those detained will continue until the matter is clarified," according to the
Associated Press.
The
Islamic Republic News Agency of Iran reported that " British Foreign Minister Jack Straw held a
telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharrazi on Tuesday." According to a report released by the British Foreign Ministry media department, Straw called for release of the captured marines and said that they entered the Iranian waters by mistake.
Formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Shatt al-Arab connects the southern Iraqi city of Basra to the Persian Gulf and has long been a source of contention between the two countries on its banks.
Iraq invaded Iran on September 22, 1980. Casuality estimates for the eight year war range between 450,000 to 730,000 Iranians and 100,000 to 250,000 Iraqis. Iran is a country three-and-a-half times as large and four times more populous than Iraq.
The end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, "in part
fought over the waterway, saw a return to the pre-war status of a river spilt down the middle," reports the
Guardian. The Iraqi portion is at present under the control of the British occupying forces in the south of the country.
British and Iranian officers patrolling the Iran-Iraq frontier have been holding regular meetings since last year to "avert precisely this type of incident," reports the
Times of London. "Until yesterday, relations, particularly with the regular Iranian Army as opposed to the
pasdaran (the Revolutionary Guards), were
said to be friendly and co-operative." The
Washington Post reports that "the Revolutionary Guard has
increased its prominence in Iranian public issues recently." The elite corps, long considered the bastion of hardliners in the conservative forces that dominate the government, is likely behind "government-sponsored demonstrators" who have "gathered outside the British Embassy in downtown Tehran each Friday afternoon for several weeks, chanting slogans and throwing rocks through chancery windows," said the
Post yesterday.
'I wouldn't rule anything out,' said one diplomat in Tehran, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The guard 'has been going through a reactive phase, and the Iranians do have a way of building patterns.'
Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Monday repeated assurances that
Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, reports the
Tehran Times. Khamenei, who wields ultimate authority under Iran's theocratic system, said both Islam and common sense argue against atomic weapons. But
Iran would 'insist,' said Khamenei, on developing atomic power for electricity, despite its vast oil and gas reserves. 'Enemies of the nation are looking for a day when Iranian oil reserves will be depleted and the nation will stretch its hands to them for help,' he said. 'It is unacceptable.'
Also...
•
Map of Shatt al-Arab (
Guardian)
•
Sailors Interrogated as Iran Seizes Patrol Boats (
Scotsman)
•
Leader Describes Acquisition of Nuclear Technology As National Aspiration (
Tehran Times)
•
Putting Their Heads in the Sand (
Intellectual Conservative.com)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail
Tom Regan
.
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