IRAN:Iran yesterday denied reports it was seeking to use 15 British sailors and marines taken captive last week as a bargaining chip to exchange for Iranian officials arrested by US troops in Iraq.
On the fourth day of the crisis, the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Mehzi Mostafavi, was quoted on state television as rejecting "claims that Iran intends to exchange British force personnel with the kidnapped Iranian diplomats in Iraq".
He said the Britons, 14 men and a woman, were being interrogated over Friday's incident, which the British government describes as the illegal seizure of a British patrol in Iraqi waters but which Tehran insists was an incursion into its territory.
"It should become clear whether their entry was intentional or unintentional. After that is clarified, the necessary decision will be made," he said. The remarks represent a possible softening of the Iranian government line, after suggestions the Britons would face charges in court.
But British diplomats in Tehran had still not been granted access to the detainees, nor were they told their whereabouts. The British ambassador, Geoffrey Adams, made what has become a daily visit to the foreign ministry to restate demands for information but was told only that "they are fit and well and in Iran".
Four visits to the Iranian foreign ministry in as many days and a Sunday night phone conversation between the British foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, and her Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, have so far failed. There is a growing sense among British diplomats that the Iranian foreign ministry is being left out of the loop on the captives. That is partly because several senior policymakers are on holiday during the No Rouz (new year) holiday and partly because the ministry wields limited clout in a fractured regime.
Meanwhile, Britain has asked other states including Russia to help negotiate a release. - ( Guardian service )