Iran Broadcasts New Video of Seized Britons (nytimes.com)
LONDON, March 30 — Iranian television’s Arabic-language channel broadcast footage on Friday of a captured British Royal Marine seeming to apologize “deeply” for entering Iranian waters without permission. Iran also released what it said was a third letter from Faye Turney, the only woman among the captives, in which she purportedly complained of being “sacrificed” to British and American policies.
Iran’s official Arabic-language television station broadcast today a new video of one of the British sailors seized a week ago.
The newest moves by Iran added to a deepening sense of revulsion and frustration among British officials.
Iranian television identified the latest Briton to be displayed as rifleman Nathan Thomas Summers. The marine was one of 15 British soldiers seized on March 23 and his appearance followed similar televised and written statements by Leading Seaman Turney.
As the confrontation between Britain and Teheran has mounted, British newspapers have taken to calling the episode a “hostage crisis,” and some analysts have said it shows the narrow limits of British authority four years after the invasion of Iraq. Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed “disgust” at British personnel being “paraded” and “manipulated.”
“They have got to be released,” he told a television interviewer.
Mr. Summers was shown wearing olive-and-sand-colored camouflage fatigues with the words “Royal Navy” and a small union jack badge on the shirt. He was seen sitting next to Leading Seaman Turney and another unidentified marine. Their whereabouts have not been publicly disclosed. Britain insists that the sailors were “ambushed” while operating under United Nations and Iraqi authority, 1.7 nautical miles within Iraqi waters.
In television footage that seemed to jump between camera angles as if it had been edited, Mr. Summers said Britain had promised after a similar incident in 2004 that its naval vessels would not trespass in Iranian waters.
“Again I deeply apologize for entering your waters,” Mr. Summers said.
In what was said to be Leading Seaman Turney’s third letter, the 26-year-old sailor went further than in previous letters when she has said she and the other personnel were in Iranian waters when they were captured, and apologizing for that. The previous missives were supposedly to be sent to her family and to parliament.
Addressed to the British people, the latest letter said: ”I am writing to you as a British serviceperson who has been sent to Iraq, sacrificed due to the intervening policies of the Bush and Blair governments.”
“Whereas we hear and see on the news the way that prisoners were treated in Abu Ghrayb and other Iraqi jails by the British and American personnel, I have received total respect and faced no harm,” the letter in her name said. “It is now our time to ask our government to make a change to its oppressive behavior towards other people.”
The British Foreign Office in London said the “manipulation” of its service personnel was “outrageous.”
The official IRNA news agency also publicized remarks by Mr. Summers, purportedly saying: “We entered Iranian waters without permission and we were detained by Iranian coast guards. I would like to apologize for this to the Iranian people.”
“Since our detention on March 23, everything has been very good and I’m completely satisfied about the situation,” he was quoted as saying.
His comments echoed remarks by Leading Seaman Turney about the alleged well-being of the Britons. In news clips interspersed with footage of their capture, some of them have been shown sharing a meal. The video shown on Friday depicted the three service personnel seeming to be smiling and relaxed.
Britain has been seeking international backing for its demand that Iran release the service personnel immediately, but failed to win full United Nations Security Council support on Thursday for a toughly-worded statement to that effect. Instead, the Security Council voiced “grave concern.”
On Friday, Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy supreme, called the Iranian action a “big mistake.” He was speaking as he arrived at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Germany where Britain might press its European partners to support punitive action against Iran by suspending export credit guarantees crucial to trade between Iran and Europe.
The British authorities are also weighing a letter sent by the Iranian Foreign Ministry to the British Embassy in Tehran on Thursday, apparently softening Iran’s demand for an apology but seeking a guarantee that British naval vessels will steer clear of Iranian waters in the future.
But Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, said there was “nothing in the letter to suggest that the Iranians are looking for a way out.” She also said it was “quite appalling and it is completely contrary to normal international convention to use people who are detained against their will, who have been detained for days now, to whom consular access is denied ... to use them for blatant propaganda in this way. I am quite horrified.”
However, it is unclear which part of the Iranian government has final control over the Britons’ destiny, with many news reports saying they are being held by Revolutionary Guards.
Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government is under domestic pressure to show itself as taking a hard line to force the release of the prisoners. But their prolonged detention has highlighted the constraints on Britain’s ability to put pressure on Iran, which is also in dispute with the west over its nuclear program.
In The Independent newspaper on Friday columnist Matthew Norman said British moral authority had been eroded by its association with the United States in the invasion of Iraq and the campaign against terrorism.
“What is crystal clear is that Iran would never have dared so blatant an act of brinksmanship were it not convinced, quite correctly, that the Iraqi misadventure has rendered Britain too nervous and demoralized, not to mention militarily overstretched, to respond with serious force,” he wrote.
“Gunboat diplomacy is a thing of the past, even if we could find a spare gunboat,” Mr. Norman said. “The days when Britain had the stature, self-confidence and façade of moral authority to play sergeant to the U.S. chief inspector on the global stage are over, and the villains know it.”
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