Iraq says Brits were in Iraqi waters when kidnapped

Telegraph:

Iraq has insisted that the 15 British service personnel seized by Iran on Friday were not captured in Iranian waters, as Teheran maintains.

...

Iran also quashed suggestions that it was aiming to swap the sailors for five Iranians arrested in northern Iraq.

Mehzi Mostafavi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, did not say what Iran plans to do with the British personnel, but added: "Iran has enough evidence to prove that the British Forces personnel were detained in Iranian waters."

...

Speaking in Berlin last night, Mr Blair said he still hoped that there could be a diplomatic solution.

"I hope that this is resolved in the next few days," he said. "The quicker it is resolved, the easier it will be for all of us.

"We have certainly sent the message back to them very clearly indeed. They should not be under any doubt at all about how seriously we regard this act, which is unjustified and wrong."

The seizure by Iran was a "very serious situation", Mr Blair added.

He warned Teheran that it was a "fundamental" issue for Britain and insisted that the personnel had not strayed into Iranian waters.

He said: "I have not been commenting up to now because I want to get it resolved in as easy and diplomatic a way as possible, because it is the welfare of the people that have been taken by the Iranian government that is most important. But this is a very serious situation."

The sailors and Marines were seized from the Shatt al-Arab waterway south of the Iraqi city of Basra. Teheran claimed the patrol encroached on its territorial waters in an act of "blatant aggression".

But this was disputed strongly by Mr Blair. He said: "There is no doubt at all that these people were taken from a boat in Iraqi waters.

...

This is a graphic on the positions of the craft involved. Here is a question I have seen no answer to. Where does the ships captain of the inspected boat say he was at the time of the incident. He would appear to be a neutral third party and no doubt he had his own GPS signal. My guess is that the Iranians may have been the only people there who may not have had GPS position equipment. Not surprisingly, the UK insist that its equipment puts it in Iraq waters. The Iraqis were probably using radar to track the craft. At this point I am still speculating that Iranian bad faith is responsible for this incident.

The Times has much more on the Iraqi support for the UK position.

The Iraqi government today waded into the row over the detention by Iran last week of 15 British sailors and Marines, demanding their release and insisting that they were seized in Iraqi waters, not Iranian waters as maintained by Tehran.

Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s Foreign Minister, made the comments after speaking yesterday to his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, whom he urged to free the British troops. Mr Zebari told Mr Mottaki that the personnel were operating as part of the US-led coalition, with the consent of the Iraqi Government and in line with UN resolutions.

“The minister stressed that they (the British naval personnel), according to Iraqi authorities’ information, were detained inside Iraqi territorial waters,” a statement from Mr Zebari's ministry said.

“They are part of the multinational forces (based in Iraq) with the approval of the Iraqi Government and in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolution.”

...

That is pretty unequivocal. I would not be surprised to see statements of support from other countries in the region.