 British conflicting rhetoric on violation of Iranian territorial waters
Tehran, 2007/03/30, IRIB
The detention of British sailors in Iranian territorial waters has received passive reactions from some British media and officials.
The London-based daily The Times in an analysis of the detention of the British military sailors in Iranian waters first claimed that the British Royal Marine forces had been on a ship in the Iraqi waters, which were trapped by Iranian forces.
By distorting facts The Times daily has claimed that last Saturday a helicopter took off from a ship, which had docked in the Persian Gulf Waters and took photos of its location and situation. These images show point 1.7 nautical mile to be part of Iraqi territorial waters. Britain claims that its marine forces have been arrested at this point.
On the other hand the British forces onboard the ship had communication equipment through which they could dispatch their location to the HMS Cornwall. But the British Defence Office has refused to show the computer print of the information dispatched from the ship.
In another case of contradictory remarks the British defence office on Friday announced: British forces were arrested at 10:30 AM local time while on Wednesday the British Defence Office in contradiction with its previous statements announced: Contact was lost with the British sailors at 9:10 AM local time.
In its initial reports the British government had announced that the British sailors had been asked out from an Arabian boat but later on the British defence office announced the British royal marines have come out of a cargo ship but Iran broadcast images, which showed British forces were getting off an Arabian boat.
General Hakim Jasem who is in charge of controlling Iraqi territorial waters on Saturday said: Iraqi fishermen informed us that British gunboats have entered a region outside the Iraqi control.
But the documents provided by Iran show that the British boats have violated the Iranian waters six times. The documents presented by Iran have also been confirmed by TV and written confessions of two British military sailors.
British officials have sent out a passive reaction toward the confessions of the British military sailors. Iran had previously warned Britain against its repeated violation of the Iranian territorial waters and London had committed not to repeat such mistakes.
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