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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Britain rejects talk of apology to Iran |
| 2009-06-05 |
| [Iran Press TV Latest] Britain rejects a comment by the Iranian president that former British premier Tony Blair had sent a letter of apology to Iran over the Marines case. The rejection came one day after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a televised debate with rival Mir-Hossein Moussavi said that a letter by Blair had prompted Tehran to release the 15 British sailors who were arrested by Iranian forces for illegal entry into Iranian waters in 2007. "The sailors were captured and after the issue reached a climax, Mr. Blair sent a letter of apology. He said they would change their policy toward Iran. The related documents are in the Foreign Ministry ... I believe that one of the most beautiful things the Islamic Republic did was to release the sailors," Ahmadinejad had said. The sitting president had made his remarks after Moussavi criticized Ahmadinejad over his foreign policy approach and cited the case as an example of the current administration's failed policies. An official with Britain's Foreign Office, however, told the BBC Persian website that the Blair administration had not apologized to the Iranian government in 2007. After the arrest of the sailors, some letters were exchanged between the British embassy to Tehran and Iranian officials, but the letters were not meant as an apology because the incident basically did not happen in the Iranian territorial waters, the Persian-language report cited the spokesman as saying. Fifteen British sailors and marines -- detained on March 23, 2007 for illegal entry into Iranian waters -- were released by Tehran on April 4. At that time, an advisor to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei had also said that Tehran had received a letter from the British prime minister before the release of the 15 British personnel. On the release, Ali-Akbar Velayati then explained that Iran had achieved its "objectives" in the political standoff with Britain over the arrests. |
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| #1 well, if in this entire ordeal, the best the UK say is that they didn't apologize to Iranian pirates, then we have a pathetic situation here. |
| Posted by: HammerHead 2009-06-05 09:50 |