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bd popeye

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UN calls for RN sailors release.

Ther pressure in this situation is wratchting up. Big time.

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U.N. urges resolution of Iran seizure By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council expressed "grave concern" Thursday over Iran's seizure of 15 British sailors and marines and called for an early resolution of the escalating dispute, but Iran's chief international negotiator suggested the captives might be put on trial.

As the standoff drove world oil prices to new six-month highs, Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, reportedly sought to calm tensions by urging Iran to let a Turkish diplomat meet with the detainees and to free the lone woman among the Britons.

Tensions had seemed to be cooling a day earlier, but after Iran angered British leaders by airing a video of the prisoners and Britain touched a nerve in Tehran by seeking U.N. help, positions hardened even more Thursday.

Iran retreated from a pledge by Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki that the female sailor, Faye Turney, would be released soon. Mottaki then repeated that the matter could be resolved if Britain admitted its sailors mistakenly entered Iranian territorial waters last Friday.

Britain's Foreign Office insisted again that the sailors and marines were seized in an Iraqi-controlled area while searching merchant ships under a U.N. mandate and said no admission of error would be made.

With Britain taking its case to the United Nations, Ali Larijani, the top Iranian negotiator in all his country's foreign dealings, went on Iranian state radio to issue a warning.

He said that if Britain continued its current approach, "this case may face a legal path" — a clear reference to Iran prosecuting the sailors and marines in court. "British leaders have miscalculated this issue," he said.

Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, Iran's military chief, blamed the backtracking on releasing the British woman on "wrong behavior" by her government. "The release of a female British soldier has been suspended," the semiofficial Iranian news agency Mehr said.

The Security Council's statement was a watered-down version of a stronger draft sought by Britain to "deplore" Iranian actions and urge the immediate release of the prisoners, primarily because Russia opposed putting blame on the Tehran regime, diplomats said.

Russia also objected to the council adopting Britain's position that its sailors were operating in Iraqi waters when they were captured, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

With agreement required from all 15 members for a statement's wording, the parties spent more than four hours in private talks before emerging with wording softer than had been sought by Britain, which is also known as the United Kingdom.

"Members of the Security Council expressed grave concern at the capture by the Revolutionary Guard and the continuing detention by the government of Iran of 15 United Kingdom naval personnel and appealed to the government of Iran to allow consular access in terms of the relevant international laws," the statement said.

"Members of the Security Council support calls including by the secretary-general in his March 29 meeting with the Iranian foreign minister for an early resolution of this problem including the release of the 15 U.K. personnel."

British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry expressed hope it would send "the right message" to the Iranian government to provide immediate access to the prisoners and bring their prompt release.

Earlier, Iranian state television reported what was believed to be Ahmadinejad's first comment on the standoff, saying he accused Britain of using propaganda rather than trying to solve the matter quietly through diplomatic channels.

Iran's state TV also said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip had contacted Ahmadinejad seeking permission for a Turkish diplomat to meet with the seized Britons and urging the release of Turney, the female sailor.

Erdogan's move was seen as a possible opening to mediation in the faceoff because Turkey is one of the few countries that has good relations with both Iran and the West.

The report said Ahmadinejad promised that Erdogan's appeal would be studied, but also told the Turkish leader that the detention case had entered a legal investigation phase.

State television also broadcast a video it said showed show the operation that seized the British sailors and marines. In the clip, a helicopter hovers above inflatable boats in choppy seas, then the Royal Navy crews are seen seated in an Iranian vessel.

The video came a day after Iran broadcast a longer video showing the Britons in captivity. That video included a segment showing Turney saying her team had "trespassed" in Iranian waters.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett condemned Iran's use of Turney for what she called "propaganda purposes," calling it "outrageous and cruel."

The Iranians released a letter Wednesday purportedly written by Turney to her family saying the British sailors were in Iranian waters. And the video aired Thursday showed another letter supposedly by Turney to Britain's Parliament calling for British troops to leave Iraq.

"I ask the representatives of the House of Commons, after the government promised that this kind of incident wouldn't happen again, why did they let this occur, and why has the government not been questioned over this," the letter read. "Isn't it time to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and let them determine their own future?"

Some experts raised questions about that letter, saying its wording hinted it was first composed in Farsi and then translated into English.

"It's obviously been dictated to her," said Nadim Shehadi, an expert on Iran at the Chatham House think tank in London. "There's no way she would phrase it like that."

Beckett said there were "grave concerns about the circumstances in which it was prepared and issued."

"This blatant attempt to use Leading Seaman Turney for propaganda purposes is outrageous and cruel," Beckett said.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair 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.

But in a briefing to reporters, the spokesman said British officials had been angered by Tehran's decision to show video of the captives.

"Nobody should be put in that position. It is an impossible position to be put in," he said. "It is wrong. It is wrong in terms of the usual conventions that cover this. It is wrong in terms of basic humanity."
 

BLUEJACKET

Banned Idiot
Iran suspends release of detained Briton: agency
Thu Mar 29, 9:50 AM ET

Iran has suspended the release of a British woman who was detained among a group of 15 British naval personnel Tehran says entered Iranian waters illegally, Iran's Mehr News Agency reported on Thursday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Wednesday Iran would release Faye Turney "as soon as possible" but did not say when. A British diplomat in Tehran said the embassy had not had any official word.

"The release of a female British soldier has been suspended," Mehr news said in a report that quoted military commander Alireza Afshar. "The wrong behavior of those who live in London caused the suspension."

The secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, said earlier on Thursday that Iran would delay the release of Turney if Britain made a "fuss" about the case.

"When this British soldier admitted to the violation of our country's waters and expressed sorrow and regret, officials in charge decided to release her. But instead of being thankful for this humanitarian move, the British brought threats on to their agenda," Afshar said.
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I fear the worst is yet to come!
 

The_Zergling

Junior Member
Former British Ambassador Craig Murray is now challenging the legitimacy of the map just published by the British government in the current dispute with Iran over those 15 captured British sailors and marines.

...

"I have been unpopular before, but the level of threats since I started blogging on the captured marines has got a bit scary. It is therefore with some trepidation that I feel obliged to point this out.

"The British Government has published a map showing the coordinates of the incident, well within an Iran/Iraq maritime border. The mainstream media and even the blogosphere has bought this hook, line and sinker.

"But there are two colossal problems.

"A) The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree their bilateral boundary, and they never have done this in the Gulf, only inside the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This published boundary is a fake with no legal force.

"B) Accepting the British coordinates for the position of both HMS Cornwall and the incident, both were closer to Iranian land than Iraqi land. Go on, print out the map and measure it. Which underlines the point that the British produced border is not a reliable one.

"None of which changes the fact that the Iranians, having made their point, should have handed back the captives immediately. I pray they do so before this thing spirals out of control. But by producing a fake map of the Iran/Iraq boundary, notably unfavourable to Iran, we can only harden the Iranian position."

When I spoke with the former Ambassador he told me how dumbfounded he is by the way in which the mainstream media continues to treat this dispute.
The BBC for instance has already interviewed a supposed expert regarding the map, who vouched for its authenticity. But the point is, as Craig Murray, points out, how can such a map exist if the subject of boundaries has never been settled between Iraq and Iran? Turns out the expert had been referred to the BBC by the British Ministry of Defense--who also turned out the plan.
Sounds like the rerun of a bad movie we've already seen.

I can't find the original link. Still, I think it's definitely something to take notice of.
 

SampanViking

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Thank you Zergling - Like I have said before shades of the Dodgy Dossier and why? simply you cannot believe a word that this Prime Minister and his Cronies tell you, simple as that.

If this were not bad enough, we also know that they routinely install placemen into positions of authority who share there own disragrd of proberty. After 10 years in power, that can add up to a lot of people. So sadly we now have to take formally reliable spokesman with a large pinch of salt too.
 
D

Deleted member 675

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I can't find the original link. Still, I think it's definitely something to take notice of.

What I would like to know is why a former diplomat ignored UNCLOS. If he was unaware of it I'm not sure he was qualified to comment. He also seems to ignore that both the Iraqis and Iranians have claims in the region - why doesn't he draw us a map with those claims and show the overlapping disputed region? Again, I'm rather surprised a former diplomat would take a "it's nearer to X, so it's X's" attitude to territory. When he was at the FCO he was head of the Maritime Section - thought he might have picked up a few pieces of knowledge there!

Thing about Craig Murray is that he isn't terribly objective. Maybe when he was ambassador to Uzbekistan he was making fair criticism - now he's been fired for some time, I'm not sure that's the case. He's actually said he sees himself as a dissident - he makes a lot of his living that way.

I had another thought about the second letter - it reminded me of an episode of the Simpsons where Lisa gets a letter from a penpal in an undisclosed Eastern Europe/Central Asian country.

"Dear Lisa,

As I write this I am very sad. Our president has been overthrown and
replaced by the benevolent General Krull. All hail Krull and his glorious new regime!

Sincerly,

Little Girl."
 
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bd popeye

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25 years after Falklands war Argentina still claims islands

Last I check the Argentine got their collective azzez kicked! Looks like some politician is trying to make a name for himself.

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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Twenty-five years after hostilities ceased, Argentina is opening a new front in the Falklands War.

Rather than jets and mortar rounds, however, this salvo involves diplomats appealing for help at the United Nations and the government reasserting long-standing claims to the island chain where far more sheep than people huddle against the forbidding South Atlantic winds.

London, however, maintains its hold on the island, which Argentina invaded 25years ago this Monday.

Many Argentines — especially the left-wing power base of President Nestor Kirchner — see the war as a huge mistake pursued by the nation's discredited military dictators. But Argentines still universally call the Falklands — known in South America as the "Malvinas" — as their own. And in this election year, Kirchner appears poised to gain support by pushing hard against Britain's firm refusal to negotiate on the islands' fate.

"Argentina has never consented to the United Kingdom's claim of rights to the territory," Eduardo Airaldi, Kirchner's top official in charge of the South Atlantic region, said as he described Kirchner's position in an interview with The Associated Press.

Kirchner's predecessors didn't do as much to press Argentina's claims to the islands. Former President Carlos Menem restored diplomatic ties with Britain in 1990 after agreeing to shelve the sovereignty question.

In contrast, Kirchner declared the archipelago's recovery to be "a permanent and irrevocable objective of the Argentine people." His government expressed irritation when Britain protested the presence of an Argentine ship near the islands and challenged changes to fishing rights made by Falklands administrators. In January he sent his foreign minister to lobby U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to support new sovereignty talks.

Argentina on Tuesday said it scrapped a deal Menem had signed with the British to explore for oil and natural gas around the Falklands. The joint venture yielded no major discoveries, but was long on symbolism, since it represented an Argentine acknowledgment of British rights to the sea floor. Britain's Foreign Office called the end of the deal a "regrettable action" that "will not in any way help Argentina in its claim for sovereignty of the Islands."

Just before the Argentine invasion on April 2, 1982, diplomats from both countries had been talking about an eventual Hong Kong-like handover of the colony Britain had occupied since 1833, despite the idea's unpopularity in London and among the 3,000 or so British-descended residents of the island, known as "kelpers."

But the invasion changed all that.

"We will not discuss sovereignty unless and until the Islanders so wish. At present they do not," a British Foreign Office spokeswoman told the AP on condition of anonymity in line with department policy. "In this respect, 1982 changed everything."

Britain reacted quickly to the invasion, summoning the Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship to carry 3,000 troops and mobilizing an armada that included Prince Andrew to sail some 8,000 miles south.

British artillery pounded the Argentine draftees who had dug foxholes in the rocky soil. Humbled by the onslaught, the South American nation surrendered that June 14, after 649 Argentine and 272 British troops were killed.

The two countries share a long history — the British helped build Argentina's railroads and promoted its beef industry. A large British community still lives in Argentina, served by an English-language daily paper in the capital.

But the Falklands dispute remains an open wound. Many public schools, streets, small businesses and taxi stands are proudly named for the Malvinas. Billboards that read "The Malvinas are ours" are a common sight.

Kirchner has sought to avoid offending either the left or the right in Argentina by focusing on the idea that Britain acted illegally when it expelled an Argentine military garrison from the islands in 1833, a nationalist tone that analysts say won't hurt him this election year.

So Argentines were outraged recently when British Prime Minister Tony Blair compared the British retaking of the islands to the Kosovo air war that led to the overthrow of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

"I have got no doubt it was the right thing to do," Blair said in a podcast on his Web site. "But for reasons not simply to do with British sovereignty but also because I think there was a principle at stake which is that a land shouldn't be annexed in that way."

Many Argentines initially supported the war as well, but came to blame the ruling military junta for picking a fight the country had little hope of winning, and sending conscripts to their deaths.

The greatest legacy of the 74-day war for Argentines is that the defeat hastened the fall of the dictatorship a year later in 1983, said Riordan Roett, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University.

Associated Press Writers Oscar Serrat in Buenos Aires and Raphael G. Satter in London contributed to this report.
 

SampanViking

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The Royal Navy has released their GPS data - why didn't you ask the same thing then?

You would rather I question the voracity of the UK data claims rather than those of the Iranians?

Nevermind, I far more inclined to listen to the views of Craig Murray, who; strangley enough Fu, probably understands the situation far better than both of us. He is also simply one of a growing list of former insiders who are casting a highly uncomplimentary light on how this Government likes to go about its business. Fear - Spin and plain Misinformation, it is the most shameful government we had had in recent history.

Overall though, I detect strong shades of 1979 and the Embassy hostage crisis. I doubt if this will last as long though, as I suspect that the objective here is to ensure that Blair leaves office with the legacy of unrelaeased hostages hanging around him. Who knows maybe this is something that may force his departure to happen sooner rather than later.

NO surprise then that he has been looking so nervy about the matter.
 
D

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You would rather I question the voracity of the UK data claims rather than those of the Iranians?

No, you claimed the UK data claim was a lie - so why didn't you ask how easy it was to falsify then?

Nevermind, I far more inclined to listen to the views of Craig Murray, who; strangley enough Fu, probably understands the situation far better than both of us.

He should do, but as I said he seems to have forgotten basic UN law when it comes to maritime issues, which is strange given he worked in the Maritime department.

I doubt if this will last as long though, as I suspect that the objective here is to ensure that Blair leaves office with the legacy of unrelaeased hostages hanging around him.

Yeah, right - the Iranians really care about Blair's legacy.

Sampan, can you explain to me why you ignore UNCLOS every time I bring it up? Can I take your silence on that point as indication you agree with me?
 

SampanViking

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No, you claimed the UK data claim was a lie - so why didn't you ask how easy it was to falsify then?

errrr......!! Is this Straw Man day or something? - no I just did not believe they were telling the truth - I was claiming nothing:confused:

He should do, but as I said he seems to have forgotten basic UN law when it comes to maritime issues, which is strange given he worked in the Maritime department.

Or maybe he knows far more than you do, or maybe there has to be an agreed International boundary for it to apply, or maybe it needs a Z in the month.... a little learning Mr FMC can be a dangerous thing;)

Yeah, right - the Iranians really care about Blair's legacy.

Well I dont know what Planet your from, but here on good ole Earth, Politics, National and International are riven with petty rivalry, ego trips and vendettas. If the Iranians can screw Blairs legacy or even hasten his departure, in the hope of effecting a more favourable shift in UK policy, then I think they would jump at it.

Sampan, can you explain to me why you ignore UNCLOS every time I bring it up? Can I take your silence on that point as indication you agree with me?

No!! you can primarily take my silence as compliance with a Moderation instruction from BD Popeye

I'm now reopening this thread. Reminder >> This thread is about the UK military. Not about the UN, NATO or any other international enity, policies or the political ideolgy of any country. Although it may be difficult to refrain from all political discussion I'm sure our intelligent forum members will abide by the rules and spirit of this forum
.

Which I have no intention of violating.

I would say only and without further comment, that there is a big difference in simply crossing a border line and crossing a border line and undertaking operations with a view to board and detain goods and personnel of citizens from the country whose border has been violated. Add to this the ambiguity as to whose waters they are, you are left with a situation where our service personnel were being orderd to performing boarding and searching operations with a view to Impounding and detentions in waters they were not in our undisputed right to so do. If somebody undertook boardings, searches, impoundings and detentions of UK vessels under similar circumastances, I am sure the UK would react in a similar way as have the Iranians.

We would probably call it Piracy.:coffee:
 

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
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I found this intresting picture on navy.mil. Do any of the RM or sailors that were captured appear in this picture? Just curious...

If you want the "full Monty" version of the pic follow this link:

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Here is the caption of the picture. Check the date. Curious:confused:

PERSIAN GULF (March 28, 2007) - British Royal Marines wait aboard Iraqi Navy Ship P 101 in the Persian Gulf. The Royal Marines will embark HMS Cornwall (F 99) in support of Maritime Security Operations. MSO help set the conditions for security and stability in the maritime environment, as well as complement the counter-terrorism and security efforts of regional nations. These operations deny international terrorists use of the maritime environment as a venue for attack or to transport personnel, weapons or other material. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Michael Zeltakalns
 

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