<font color=brown> Won't sour relations? Huh?
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Straw: Detention of British marine personnel won't sour relations with Iran
03:53 PM EDT Jun 24
KEVIN WARD
LONDON (CP) - British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says an improved atmosphere in relations with Iran - often under strain in the last 25 years - won't be fouled over the detention of eight servicemen by the Iranian government.
"We work hard on these relationships and sometimes these relationships are complicated," Straw said Thursday after the eight men were handed over to British diplomats and taken to their embassy in the Iranian capital of Tehran.
"But I'm in no doubt that our policy of engagement with the government of Iran and the Islamic People's Republic of Iran is the best approach."
The eight men - six Royal Marines and two Royal Navy sailors - were detained on Monday after they strayed into Iranian territory while travelling on the Arvand River, which separates Iran and Iraq. They were delivering a patrol boat to Iraq's river police.
Although some reports in Iran indicated the Britons' boats, firearms and equipment would be kept, the country's foreign minister announced it would release the British property.
"We will hand over the boats and the equipment the British troops were carrying within the next five days," Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi was quoted as saying on state television.
There had been fears that the British servicemen would be charged with illegally entering Iranian territory and a group of protesters at the Tehran airport demanded they stand trial, according to a report from Iran.
Iranians opposed to Britain's role in Iraq have held a series of demonstrations outside the British Embassy in recent weeks.
It's expected the eight British servicemen men will rejoin their units in Iraq.
Two of the soldiers were shown on Iranian television apologizing for entering Iran, while all of the men were paraded for state TV in blindfolds.
The pictures led to angry headlines in Britain's tabloid newspapers.
The Daily Mail published a picture on Thursday of the men in blindfolds, their hands clasped on top of their heads, under the headline: "The final insult, Iran declares Navy men can go free, but can't resist one more act of humiliation."
Like many Western countries, Britain closed its embassy in Tehran after the Islamic revolution in 1979.
It was reopened in 1988 and since then ties between the two countries have been patchy, highlighted by a number of moments of tension, including the breaking off of diplomatic relations in 1989 over an Iranian edict ordering the assassination of British author Salman Rushdie.
Two years ago, another conflict erupted when Iran rejected David Reddaway as Britain's ambassador to Tehran on the grounds that he was a spy. He has since become Britain's high commissioner to Canada.
Straw has been a frequent visitor to Iran as he courted Kharrazi before the war in Afghanistan and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Relations hardened again earlier this month when Britain helped draft a resolution for the United Nations nuclear watchdog that was critical of Iran for failing to co-operate with inspections of its nuclear program.
Despite the twists and turns in relations between the two countries, the chairman of the all-party Commons foreign affairs committee said the government's policy is the right one, but hard-line factions within Iran cause uncertainty at times.
"There are competing clusters of power, both in terms of internal and external policies," Donald Anderson, a Labour MP, told British Broadcasting Corp. television.
"Iran is a very important country in terms of its strategic position (and) its oil reserves, and the government (has) made a decision . . . to seek, without begin naive . . . to engage with Iran and to exert as much influence positively as we can."
cbc.ca |
