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Foreign Office calls pictures 'disgraceful exploitation'
 The Foreign Office in London Friday condemned as 'disgraceful exploitation ' an IRNA news agency interview with a British captive, who supposedly apologised to the Iranian nation for violation of its territorial waters. IRNA quoted Nathan Thomas Summers as saying in an interview, which Iranian television was also to carry, that he and the other sailors entered Iranian waters without permission and would therefore like to apologise to the Iranian nation for the violation. The British sailor was further quoted as saying that he had been treated 'very well and humanitarianly' and there has been 'no maltreatment.' An Iranian cleric said at a Friday prayer ceremony that London was to blame for the fact that female British captive Faye Turney had not been released as initially planned by the Iranian government. 'It was decided in Iran that the female soldier would be released but the ballyhoo approach by the British government led to the decision being revised,' Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said at Friday prayers in in Tehran. 'We are neither looking for a conflict (with Britain) nor tension in the region but we will not allow any country to violate our territory and especially not Britain which has no positive record in Iranian history,' the Ayatollah said. He added that Britain should 'no longer act as a great empire of the 19th century' and realise that the current approach would just further complicate the issue. Khatami also termed the dispute 'a bilateral issue' between Tehran and London and called on the United Nations Security Council and the European Union to stay out of it. The Iranian foreign ministry had earlier called on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana to stay out of the dispute or at least study the facts more carefully before commenting. 'If Britain continued the current approach, then the issue would have a high cost for London,' the Ayatollah warned without further elaborating. The news network Khabar reported that one of the British captives had 'disclosed' more details on the incident in an interview which is to be broadcast later Friday on Iranian television. A number of Islamist students plan to stage a protest demonstration in front of the British embassy in Tehran following the Friday prayers. The Iranian government has delivered a note concerning the 15 British captives to the British embassy in Tehran, the Foreign Office in London confirmed Friday. It refused to reveal the contents of the communication, but commentators said it could be seen as an 'encouraging sign' that contact was being made with the embassy in Tehran for the first time since the Britons were seized a week ago. 'We can confirm that, as reported in the Iranian media, the Iranian government has sent a formal note to the British Embassy. Such exchanges are always confidential so we cannot divulge any details, but we are giving the message serious consideration and will soon respond formally to the Iranian government,' the Foreign Office in London said. Last night the UN Security Council expressed 'grave concern' over the detention of the sailors and marines, and called for the crisis to be resolved as soon as possible. But the statement, agreed by all 15 members after more than three hours of negotiations in New York, was seen as a blow for Britain because it fell short of 'deploring' Tehran's actions and demanding the detainees' immediate release. 'It is shocking that the UN cannot speak out in defence of its own people,' British Iran analyst William Shawcross told the BBC Friday, pointing to the UN mandate under which British forces were assigned to patrol the waters in the northern Gulf where the 14 men and one woman were captured last Friday. Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to release the female British sailor held captive in Tehran, the Mehr news agency reported Friday. Iran should further allow the Turkish ambassador to Tehran to visit the entire group of sailors, the report said. Ahmadinejad said in his first reaction to the incident that instead of apologizing to Iran for having violated Iranian waters, Britain had complicated the issue by creating a political and media ballyhoo, eventually pushing Tehran into a legal course. In a telephone conversation on Thursday night, the Iranian president said he would order an 'evaluation of the Turkish request with a positive view.' Posted by: Fred 2007-03-31 |
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