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UNITED NATIONS - Britain took its case to free its 15 sailors and marines held by Iran to the United Nations on Thursday, asking the Security Council to support a statement that would "deplore" Tehran's action and demand their immediate release.

But Security Council diplomats said the brief press statement circulated by Britain's U.N. Mission is likely to face problems from Russia and others because it says the Britons were "operating in Iraqi waters" — a point the Iranian government contests.

The British announcement that it would seek the condemnation came as Iran rolled back on its promise to release the sole female British sailor among the captives. The Iranian military chief, Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, said that owing to the "wrong behavior" of the British government, "the release of a female British soldier has been suspended," the semiofficial Iranian news agency Mehr reported.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman dismissed a suggestion Wednesday by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki that Britain should resolve the crisis by admitting that its personnel had made a "mistake" and crossed into Iranian waters.

Instead, Britain sought a U.N. declaration condemning the detentions, a Foreign Office official had said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the subject.

The standoff and broader tensions in the Gulf region helped fuel a spike in world oil prices.

Mottaki had said Wednesday that sailor Faye Turney, 26, would be released within 48 hours. Britain said it was halting all discussion with Iran except negotiations to free the detained sailors, and expressed outrage over Iran's broadcast of images of the captured service members.

Before telling The Associated Press it was seeking condemnation of Iran, Britain said it had asked the Security Council on Thursday to support a call for the immediate release of the detainees. The British government said that its sailors and marines were seized Friday after completing a search of a civilian ship near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which forms the border between Iran and Iraq, under a mandate from the Security Council and at the request of Iraq. Iran says the British vessels were inside its territorial waters.

The issue was expected to be debated Thursday at the United Nations.

Negotiator Ali Larijani said on Iranian state radio that: "British leaders have miscalculated this issue."

If Britain follows through with its policies toward Iran, Larijani said "this case may face a legal path" — a clear reference to Iran's prosecuting the sailors in court.

Blair's official spokesman said Britain wanted to resolve the crisis quickly and without having a "confrontation over this."

"We are not seeking to put Iran in a corner. We are simply saying, 'Please release the personnel who should not have been seized in the first place,'" said the spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

In the video broadcast Wednesday on Iran's Arab-language satellite channel, Turney said her group had "trespassed" in Iranian waters. The segment showed her wearing a black head scarf, sitting in a room before floral curtains and smoking a cigarette.

"Obviously we trespassed into their waters," Turney said. "They were very friendly and very hospitable, very thoughtful, nice people. They explained to us why we've been arrested. There was no harm, no aggression."

Britain's Ministry of Defense released coordinates that it said proved the captured naval personnel were seized 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters.

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Schumacher said:

UK sailors shown on TV. Remember the time Saddam visited the UK family in Baghdad before the first war ? Thatcher went ballistic in the parliament, now that's what going to war is like.
Compare that to the current reaction from UK & US, that's why I say war, if any, is a long time away. And I think Iran gets this message as well.

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bd popeye said:

Britain takes case against Iran to U.N.

I hope a peaceful resolution can be reached in this crisis. For now the "War of Words" will continue.

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fishhead said:

From the report it can be seen that UN obviously can't backup UK's claim that they're in Iraqi water, which is still debatable.

The only thing they can say is peaceful solution, but Iran wants UK's appolgy.

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bd popeye said:

I don't think they were in "Iraqi waters" Those Iranians "pirated" those RN sailors. Period. The Iranians in my opinion want the return of the 5 revolutionalry guards that were captured inside of Iraq assiting the "insurgents" in Iraq.

Don't believe the "confession" of the female RN sailor. I know I don't. Some sort of tactic was parbally placed on her to admidt to wrongdoing.

I do not trust a single word comming out of the Iranian government.

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fishhead said:

Iran claims that Britons violated their water 6 times.

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I don't think it really matters if they violated Iranian water or not. In normal cases, you got a warning and leave. But this time Iran actually sent out a team to capture them. If it's a setup, then it's Iranian setup.

The timing was perfect, one day before UNSC meeting on Iran nuclear issue. If Iran wants to redirect crisis attention, then they're quite successful.

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SampanViking said:

If confirmed, is this hard and fast evidence or can such readings be faked?

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Various Iranian politicians, including a powerful member of parliament (Majlis), Mohammad Reza Bahonar, have stated that London should not expect Iran to ignore the violation of Iran's sovereignty lightly. Iran's embassy in London, contradicting the

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, has issued a statement that puts the sailors half a mile inside Iranian territorial waters. ..According to an Iranian political analyst seasoned in "threat analysis", Iran's ability to play hardball with Britain serves the national interest at a time when Western powers manipulate the
Middle East landscape almost at will. "Iran is sending a clear message that the 'buck stops here'," he told the author.
Apparently, the message is not lost on Iran's neighbors, and at the opening ceremony of an Arab summit in Riyadh, Saudi

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"foreign powers" to stop meddling in the affairs of the region, since the days when they could impose their wills on the people of the region had passed.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was invited to the Arab summit at the last moment and only after the outbreak of the crisis over the British sailors. In fact, on the eve of the summit, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi declined to attend and sent a message that he would refuse to participate in an "anti-Iran" spectacle aimed at pitting "Sunnis versus Shi'ites". Both Iranian and Arab papers have reported on the recent meeting of US officials with the intelligence chiefs of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Saudi Arabia over forming a new anti-Iran network.
Clearly, Tehran's row with London has had immediate dividends with respect to Iran's regional clout, causing pro-Iran sympathies in the Arab world. Arabs now see in Iran's "heroic" standing up to "Western imperialists" a source of much-needed inspiration and hope, in contrast to their own feckless leadership. "The Arabs of the Persian Gulf are now less inclined to join the US and Israel against Iran than they were a mere week ago," a former Iranian diplomat told the author.
Rising oil prices (more than $65 a barrel) due to the crisis represent yet another windfall that compensates to some extent for the economic losses caused by Europe's backlash. Iran's "calculated escalation" has not only helped lift nationalist spirits in Iran, it has also bridged the gaps between the nuclear crisis and the Iraq crisis. It has served as a sort of catalytic convergence of what had hitherto been regarded as discrete issues, serving notice on their interconnections and thus putting a premium on the omnibus of punitive measures against Iran.
Simultaneously, the combined

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and

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against Iran have made Moscow and Beijing realize the explosive nature of the situation, inducing them to draw a red line on their support for the United States' designs against Iran.
Thus, in their joint statement in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao warned the US against making any military moves on Iran. The United States' painstakingly assembled international coalition against Iran at the United Nations has now been put to severe new tests. It is far from clear that, by the time the Security Council meets again some two months from now to consider the Iran nuclear crisis, the coalition will even be intact.

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In London, Vice Adm. Charles Style said the British boats were seized at 29 degrees 50.36 minutes north latitude and 48 degrees 43.08 minutes east longitude. He said that position had been confirmed by an Indian-flagged merchant ship boarded by the sailors and marines.
But the position, outside the Shatt el-Arab waterway in the Gulf, is an area where no legal boundary exists, leaving it unclear whose territory it lies in, said Kaiyan Kaikobad, author of "The Shatt al-Arab Boundary Question."
"What we do have is a de facto state practiced boundary - a line both countries have been observing on the spot," he said. "The problem is that though the British have drawn a line where they claim the de facto line is, we haven't seen an Iranian version."

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BLUEJACKET said:

Iran releases second Turney letter

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