Methinks that someone is not telling the whole truth. I very much doubt that Mr Ahmadinejad is, but I also doubt the British Foreign Office is either.
The crisis ended after Mr Ahmadinejad said Britain had sent a letter to the Iranian Foreign Ministry pledging that it would not enter Iranian waters again. Britain continues to insist that the team was never in its territorial waters.
Although the Foreign Office would not discuss details of the diplomatic note it delivered over the weekend, Government sources said Britain was willing to prevent such confusion arising again over the sensitive maritime border between Iraq and Iran.
The Ministry of Defence says it has incontrovertible evidence that the eight sailors and seven Royal Marines were 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters when they were arrested during a search of an Indian vessel on March 23.
However, the Iranians have won a significant propaganda and political coup, according to John Bolton, the Right-wing former US Ambassador to the United Nations. They had conducted an experiment that was “a low-cost way of testing British resolve”, he said….
Despite the official denials of a deal, there were indications of intense diplomatic activity to persuade Teheran to release the hostages.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported yesterday that an Iranian representative was to meet five of his countrymen detained in Iraq by US forces in January. It follows the release on Tuesday of Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian diplomat who was captured by gunmen in Baghdad in February.
I’m sure that the one release following the other was just a happy coincidence. If my theory is correct, the five other detained Iranians will be quietly released within a month or so, once the press interest fades.