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Tehran has broadcast new television footage of
detained British naval personnel as high emotions threatened to
derail diplomatic efforts to secure the release of the 15 sailors
and marines.
Top officials continued to trade
barbs and Iranian students staged a rock- and firecracker-throwing
demonstration at the British Embassy in Tehran, while Iran’s
foreign ministry urged the US president to steer clear of the
matter.
Britain and Iran said they were
engaged in direct talks but Tehran has so far refused to bow to
pressure to free the 15.
Britain insists they were on a
routine antismuggling patrol in Iraqi waters under a UN mandate, but
the Islamic republic says they were captured because they strayed
into its territorial waters.
Images broadcast on Iranian state
television’s Arabic language channel late Sunday showed two of the
naval personnel separately, each standing in front of an Iranian
chart of the northern Gulf waters where they were seized on March
23.
One of them said he could
understand why Iran was “angry” about “our intrusion into your
waters,” while the other pointed to a place on the map where they
were “apparently” taken captive while “inside Iranian
territorial waters.”
The captives said they were being
well-treated but Britain was quick to condemn the new pictures as
“unacceptable,” a foreign ministry spokeswoman said.
US President George W. Bush, who
has backed Britain in its attempts to free the naval personnel, has
called the sailors and marines “hostages” and urged their
release, words which drew a harsh retort from Iran on Sunday.
“It is better for the US
president to refrain from making ill-considered, non-technical and
irrational comments,” state television quoted foreign ministry
spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini as saying.
Washington has rejected any
suggestion that the 15 could be swapped for five Iranian officials
held without charge since January by US forces in Iraq.
The United States’ ties with
Tehran have been severed for decades following the 1980 hostage
crisis.
An Iranian military chief on
Sunday accused US warplanes of violating Iranian airspace in the
southwestern oil province of Khuzestan, charges that were denied by
the US military.
Speaking in Jerusalem, Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dismissed suggestions that a US plan to
strike Iran, Syria and Lebanon was being coordinated with
Washington’s key ally in the Middle East, Israel.
“Declarations that there is an
American plan to strike Iran that is being coordinated with Israel
which would at the same time attack Syria and Lebanon is not
familiar to me, and is a baseless rumor,” Olmert said.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministers
of Britain and Iran confirmed that they were engaged in direct talks
over the detentions.
Britain’s Defense Secretary Des
Browne told BBC television that Britain was doing everything it
could to resolve the matter by diplomatic means as soon as possible.
“We are in direct bilateral
communication with the Iranians and they know that not only are we
in a very clear position but that we have the support of almost all
of the international community,” he said.
Iran confirmed the direct talks,
saying contacts had never been cut.
“They were never cut and so
there was no need to restart them,” an Iranian official told AFP.
Earlier in the day, firecrackers
exploded inside the British Embassy compound in Tehran which was
heavily guarded by antiriot police and scaffolding to keep the
protesters, members of the hardline Basij volunteer militia, at bay.
The students chanted “Death to
Britain” and “Death to America” and called for the 15 sailors
and marines to be punished. Police dispersed the crowd after two
hours.
--AFP
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