TEHERAN - Fifteen British navy personnel seized by Iran last week are currently being interrogated and will have to answer to allegations they violated Iranian waters, an Iranian official said on Monday. | The Iranians better be real careful with their "interrogations". Just saying... |
‘The case of the Britons who violated Iranian territorial waters is following the due legal process and they must answer for their violation,’ deputy foreign minister Mehdi Mostafavi said, state television reported. The eight sailors and seven marines have not yet been allowed to meet British representatives in Teheran despite a call by British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett to her Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.
MostafaviÂ’s comments came as IraqÂ’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in a statement issued in Baghdad that the Britons were detained while operating in Iraqi waters as London has already claimed. The 15 were seized on Friday in the Shatt Al Arab waterway in the northern Gulf that divides Iraq and Iran.
‘The British sailors are currently being interrogated and must clarify whether they entered Iranian waters deliberately or by mistake,’ the Iranian official said. ‘When it becomes clear, a decision will be made,’ he added.
Mostafavi denied reports that Iran wanted to exchange the British sailors with Iranians seized by US forces in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil in January.
BritainÂ’s ambassador to Teheran, Geoffrey Adams, met a senior Iranian foreign ministry official on Sunday seeking a meeting with the detained service personnel, 14 men and one woman. He was seeking another meeting with Iranian officials on Monday, the British embassy said. |