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LONDON: Britain was set to offer evidence Wednesday
that 15 of its sailors and marines held by Iran were wrongly seized
in Iraqi waters, reports said, raising the stakes in the mounting
standoff with Tehran.
The BBC reported that the
government was ready to switch from private to public diplomacy,
after Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Tuesday that negotiations
would enter a “different phase” if diplomacy reached a dead end.
Foreign Secretary Margaret
Beckett was to brief parliament on the stand-off after cutting short
a visit to Turkey, having got nowhere in talks with her Iranian
counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.
Britain insists that the eight
sailors and seven marines held by Iran were conducting “routine”
antismuggling operations when they were seized at gunpoint in the
Shatt al-Arab waterway in the north of the Gulf on Friday.
Iran says they had intruded into
Iranian waters, though that claim is contested by Iraq.
The Ministry of Defense would not
confirm BBC reports that they were about to publish satellite images
and other evidence showing that the British service personnel were
within Iraqi waters.
The Guardian newspaper said that
was to include maps, detailed co-ordinates and photographs.
The plan to put the British case
in the public domain would only change if Iran gives British
diplomats consular access to the military personnel, the daily said.
The Foreign Office could not say
when Beckett would update parliament. Blair faced his weekly
grilling from MPs at midday (1100 GMT).
Beckett unexpectedly curtailed
her Turkey trip after speaking to Mottaki in “very robust
terms,” according to a Foreign Office spokesman.
Blair’s official spokesman said
Tuesday that Britain was “utterly certain” that the sailors were
in Iraqi waters.
--AFP
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