Eight British troops held by Iran have been freed after three days of detention and are in the custody of British diplomats, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday.
The six Royal Marines and two British sailors, detained Monday after their boats apparently strayed into the Iranian side of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which runs along the Iran-Iraq border, were on their way to Tehran with British consular officials, Straw said.
PHOTO: AP
"I'm obviously very pleased indeed," he said in a brief statement outside Prime Minister Tony Blair's office.
"I'm told that they are in very good spirits and were well cared for," he said.
He said British consular officials were flying with the servicemen from the area of southwestern Iran where they had been held to the capital, where he said they would be taken to the British Embassy. He did not specify where they would then go.
"It's the news we've been waiting for, we're absolutely delighted," said Graham Reid, of Aberdeenshire in Scotland, whose son, Royal Marine David Reid, was among the detainees.
"There were some dark moments over the last few days, especially when we saw them on TV blindfolded, but this is brilliant.
"Hopefully we'll see him either late tonight or early tomorrow, I can't wait to just see him and give him a hug," the elder Reid said.
tensions
The capture of the servicemen had fueled tensions between the two countries, but Straw said he remained convinced that Britain's policy of engaging with Iran was wise.
"We have diplomatic relations with Iran, we work hard on those relationships and sometimes the relationships are complicated but I'm in no doubt at all that our policy of engagement with the government of Iran ... is the best approach," he said.
He praised the efforts of his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharrazi, and said that while he would have preferred the soldiers to have been released more quickly, he was pleased they were now free.
"These things do sometimes take time," Straw said.
He added that Britain and Iran were still discussing the possible return of the sailors' equipment and boats.
Iran had initially said it would prosecute the troops for illegally entering its territory. Concern in Britain ran high after Iran's Arabic language Al-Alam television showed the sailors blindfolded and sitting cross-legged on the ground.
But telephone conversations between Straw and Kharrazi and constant dialogue between British and Iranian officials appeared to ease the situation.
Iran softened its position, saying the servicemen would be freed if interrogations proved they had "no bad intention."
The Ministry of Defense said that the personnel were from the Royal Navy training team based in southern Iraq and were delivering a boat from Umm Qasr to Basra, Iraq when they were captured
The Foreign Office had said earlier that three British diplomats were traveling from Tehran to Abadan, a port on the Shatt al-Arab and 90km west of Mah Shahr, to receive the eight servicemen.
Britain and Iran had given conflicting reports Wednesday of the captives' status, with Iran saying they had been freed and the British Foreign Office rebutting that claim.
Strains between the two nations rose last week when Britain helped draft an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution rebuking Iran for past nuclear cover-ups.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS