Blair: No one's fooled by words of captives
The EU called for the 15 detainees' release as Britain and Iran continued to dispute the circumstances of their capture.
TEHRAN, Iran - A British marine captured by Iranians a week ago was shown on state television yesterday, apologizing for trespassing in Iranian territorial waters.
Marine rifleman Nathan Thomas Summers, seated with captive Faye Turney and another detainee, looked healthy and relaxed as he spoke.
"We illegally trespassed on Iran's territorial waters and were arrested by the Iranian border guards," said Summers, seated before a pink floral curtain. "I would like to deeply apologize to the Iranian people for the issue."
The footage, along with a letter purportedly written by Turney criticizing British foreign policy, drew swift condemnation from British authorities as violations of international standards for the treatment of 15 captured sailors and Marines.
"I really don't know why the Iranian regime keeps doing this," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said. "All it does is enhance people's disgust at the captured personnel being paraded and manipulated in this way. It doesn't fool anyone."
He said Britain would continue its work to try to "isolate" Iran.
The European Union, in a meeting yesterday of its foreign ministers in Bremen, Germany, demanded that Iran free the Britons.
Calling the crisis "a big mistake," EU foreign-policy chief Javier Solana said the "British soldiers should be released immediately and without preconditions."
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, told reporters: "It is clear that a message of solidarity must be sent from here."
British officials insist the 15 service personnel were on a routine inspection mission in the territorial waters of Iraq, where Americans and Britons assist the Baghdad government under a U.N. mandate. The officials have demanded the captives' immediate release, and on Thursday obtained a U.N. Security Council statement calling for an end to the crisis.
Iran alleges the Britons - 14 men and one woman, Turney - illegally entered Iranian territorial waters. Both sides have released maps and GPS coordinates that they say bolster their cases.
Iranian officials have said that before they grant the sailors access to British diplomats in Tehran or consider releasing them, they want Britain to apologize and to vow never to cross into Iranian territorial waters again. London has refused.
Officials from Turkey, France, Iraq, Japan, Australia and the United Nations stepped in to try to contain the escalating confrontation, which has sent world oil prices to six-month highs.
In Turney's purported letter, she asked members of Parliament to consider pulling British troops out of Iraq:
"I believe that for our countries to move forward, we need to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and leave the people of Iraq to start rebuilding their lives."
Iranian officials first announced they would release Turney as a gesture of goodwill but reneged because they disapproved of the British tone. Yesterday, the security-forces representative of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, called again for Turney's release.
"In order to show Iran's special respect for women to the world and the implementation of Iran's policy of detente, and in view of her admission, the female sailor had better be released," midranking cleric Mohammad Ali Rahmani told the Mehr news agency.
He said Iranian authorities should follow the example set in 1979, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered the release of female American diplomats taken hostage in Tehran.
"The release of this female sailor would break a fake and heavy ambience fabricated by the Westerners against Iran," he said. "Then the Islamic Republic can deal with the male sailors in accordance with international regulations."
But other Iranian hard-liners apparently steering the matter showed no signs of backing down. Leaders of Friday prayers throughout the country demanded that the British captives stand trial for charges of violating Iran's territorial waters.
"We are neither looking for a conflict nor tension in the region," Tehran prayer leader Ahmad Khatami told worshipers. "But we will not allow any country to violate our territory, and especially not Britain, which has no positive record in Iranian history."
Iran Says It Fears U.S.-Israeli Attack
In a confidential letter posted yesterday on an internal Web site of the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency, Iran said its fear of attack from the United States and Israel prompted its decision to withhold information from the agency.
Iran said the International Atomic Energy Agency had repeatedly allowed confidential information crucial to the country's security
to be leaked.
The IAEA, in response, urged Iran
to reconsider, saying the decision would be in defiance of the monitor's 35-nation board. Both the Iranian document and the IAEA's confidential response were made available to the Associated Press.
The exchange reflected heightened tensions between Iran and the Vienna, Austria-based IAEA arising from the country's refusal to heed the U.N. Security Council and freeze uranium enrichment and
the council's decision last week
to increase sanctions.
The confidential letter from Iran, dated Thursday, declared that
"the United States and the Israeli regime . . . are threatening the use of force and attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran and have repeatedly stressed that military action is an option on the table.
"So long as such threats of military action persist, Iran has no option but [to] protect its security through all means possible, including protection of information which
can facilitate openly stated and aggressive military objectives of the war mongers," said the letter, signed by Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's chief delegate to the IAEA.
- Associated Press
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