Iran Watch: Tony Blair Warns Iran
British Prime Minister Tony Blair looks on at a Public Service Reform conference in Westminster, London, Tuesday, March 27, 2007. Britain hopes that diplomacy will win the release of 15 sailors and marines detained by Iran but is prepared to move to a ‘different phase’ if negotiations fail, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday.
PM warns Iran over Navy captives
Downing Street said the UK could end up releasing evidence proving the group had not ventured into Iranian waters.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has called for their “speedy return”.
Meanwhile, the family of the only woman detained, Faye Turney from Shrewsbury, Shropshire, has said this is a “very distressing time” for them.
The BBC has been told the group are being held at an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps base in Tehran.
Iran says they were trespassing in Iranian waters when they were seized on Friday – but the prime minister said the group were in Iraqi waters under a UN mandate.
And what does a “different phase” mean?
Coincidentally (or not), the United States Navy with the John C. Stennis has been conducting manuvers in and around the Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran.
The U.S. Navy on Tuesday began its largest demonstration of force in the Persian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, led by a pair of aircraft carriers and backed by warplanes flying simulated attack maneuvers off the coast of Iran.
The maneuvers bring together two strike groups of U.S. warships and more than 100 U.S. warplanes to conduct simulated air warfare in the crowded Gulf shipping lanes.
The U.S. exercises come just four days after Iran’s capture of 15 British sailors and marines who Iran said had strayed into Iranian waters near the Gulf. Britain and the U.S. Navy have insisted the British sailors were operating in Iraqi waters.
Fancy that……
And the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower is in the region conducting war games with the USS John C. Stennis.
Stay tuned……
British hostages paraded in Iran on TV in 2004
Previous:
Iran Watch: Captured Brits – Show Trial or Bluff?
Iran Watch: Iran May Charge British Sailors
Iran Watch: Iran to Try Brits for Spying?
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Technorati Tags: Iran, Iraq, Britain, UnitedKingdomYahyaRahimSafaviTonyBlair
2 Comments
Ashley Coopland
I hope the SAS is working on this right now
When are we going to realise that diplomacy will not work with that bunch of fanatics? The UN is impotent, a fact not lost on Iran and the rest of those upstart theocracies. Let us not forget Neville C. and “Peace in our time” and remember what that led to.
Flap
It will be the Brits and Yanks again – to make the world safe for democracy.
Time for action!