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UNITED NATIONS - Britain wants UN Security Council members to endorse a statement tomorrow that would "deplore" Iran's detention of 15 of its sailors, according to a draft text.
Britain's Defence Ministry maintains that global positioning data showed that its sailors and marines were 1.7 nautical miles (3.15 km) within Iraqi waters when they were captured on Friday by Iranian gunboats near the waterway that separates Iran and Iraq. Tehran says the vessels were in Iranian territorial waters.
Iranian television showed off some of 15 British sailors and marines detained at sea last week, upping the ante after Britain halted official contacts with Iran.
Tehran said earlier it would free a woman among the 15 soon.
Britain said the broadcast, in which the female sailor was shown saying "obviously we trespassed into their waters", was "completely unacceptable". It also expressed concern the Britons may have been coerced into speaking.
British officials have had no access to the group, detained at a time of high tension between Iran and Western countries over Tehran's nuclear programme.
According to Britain's draft statement the 15-nation Security Council would "deplore the continuing detention by the Government of Iran of 15 United Kingdom naval personnel."
The vessels were "were operating in Iraqi waters as part of the Multinational Force-Iraq under a mandate from the Security Council ....and at the request of the government of Iraq," said the draft statement, which can be revised before adoption.
"Members of the Security Council support calls for the immediate release of these MNF personnel," the draft says.
Compared to a resolution, all Security Council members have to approve a statement, which means any one of the 15 nations has, in effect, a veto right.
An official Iranian news agency said some of the other sailors had also admitted to entering Iranian waters and expressed regret, quoting an unnamed Iranian official.
Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told BBC television the crisis would be solved "based on rules and regulations" and added: "The lady will be released very soon."
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett earlier told parliament Britain would freeze all official bilateral business with Iran apart from efforts to resolve the crisis.
"I am very concerned about these pictures and any indication of pressure on or coercion of our personnel who were carrying out a routine operation in accordance with international law and under a United Nations resolution in support of the Iraqi government," Beckett said in a statement after the broadcast.
British officials could not confirm the woman would be freed. She was named by British media as 26-year-old Faye Turney and said to be married with a three-year-old daughter.
A letter the Iranian embassy in London said she had written to her parents, said: "Hopefully it won't be long until I am home to get ready for Molly's birthday party..."
Al-Alam, a state-run Arabic-language television, showed Turney and several of the other sailors in uniform eating off plastic plates in a well-lit room. It also showed an interview with Turney, wearing a headscarf and smoking a cigarette.
"I was arrested on Friday the 23rd of March. Obviously we trespassed into their waters," Turney said, speaking calmly.
The Ministry of Defence said global positioning data showed the British sailors and marines were 1.7 nautical miles within Iraqi waters when they were captured by Iranian gunboats near the waterway that separates Iran and Iraq.
"The boats remained throughout well within Iraqi territorial waters," Britain's Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, Vice Admiral Charles Style, told a news conference.
With the United States conducting naval exercises in the Gulf, the rising tension rattled global markets. Oil prices jumped by $5 overnight to more than $68 a barrel before they settled back to around $64. Gold jumped to a four-week high on safe-haven buying before prices eased.
The crisis coincides with a UN Security Council resolution passed at the weekend tightening sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme. Iran denies building atomic weapons and calls the sanctions illegal.
'Wrong and illegal'
Prime Minister Tony Blair said the detention of the sailors was "wrong and illegal". The Foreign Office said the Iranian ambassador was summoned for a fifth meeting on Wednesday.
British officials could not confirm comments by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, quoted by CNN Turk television as saying Turkish diplomats may be allowed to see the captured Britons.
For the first time since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, a second US aircraft carrier, the John C. Stennis, arrived in the Gulf for previously scheduled naval war games.
Iran played down the US naval exercises. A headline across screens on Iranian state television read: "Iran: 'no concern about Pentagon's war games in the Persian Gulf'."
The European Union backed Britain. Angela Merkel, chancellor of the bloc's president Germany, said the EU extended its "absolute support and solidarity".
US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns called Iran's behaviour "reprehensible". "We and all the other allies and many other countries that aren't even allied to Britain around the world think this is odious behaviour on the part of the Iranian authorities," he told BBC television.
Iran's embassy in London said the British sailors and marines were 0.5 km inside Iranian waters at the time. It had given that data to Britain and was confident Britain and Iran could resolve the issue through cooperation.
Britain says its 15 personnel had searched a merchant ship in Iraqi waters, with a UN mandate, when they were captured.
In a similar incident in 2004, Iran freed eight British service members after holding them for three days. But since then, Iran's leadership has become more hostile to the West and tension over Iran's nuclear programme has increased.
- REUTERS
