Arrested en route to Dubai (Archives)
צילום: איי אף פי
Iran Guards say detained 5 Britons in Gulf
Aide close to President Ahmadinejad says Iran will take 'serious' action against Britons if proved they had 'evil intentions' to enter state's waters. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband believes incident to be 'promptly sorted out'
Iran's Revolutionary Guards have detained five Britons in the Gulf, a Guards commander confirmed on Tuesday, adding that it was the elite force's duty to confront "foreign forces" in the strategic waterway.
A close aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran will take "serious" measures against the Britons if proved they had "evil intentions" to enter the Islamic state's territorial waters, a news agency reported.
"Judiciary will decide about the five ... naturally our measures will be hard and serious if we find out they had evil intentions," Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie, the president's head of staff, told the semi-official Fars news agency.
The detentions, first announced by Britain on Monday, may add to tension between Tehran and London.
Britain is among Western powers embroiled in a long-running row with Tehran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions.
But British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who on Monday said the Britons' racing yacht might have strayed into Iranian waters, said there was no dispute with Iran and that he believed the yachtsmen were being well treated.
"We understand that the Iranian government are investigating the incident, which is perfectly reasonable, and then we would look forward to it being promptly sorted out," he told BBC.
"The Britons have been arrested by the Revolutionary Guards' naval forces. Confronting foreign forces and detaining them in the Gulf is the Revolutionary Guards' duty," said Ali Reza Tangsiri, a commander of the Guards' naval forces, the Fars reported.
'Illegal entry'
A Revolutionary Guards spokesman told Reuters the case was under investigation and declined further comment.
Hardline Iranian students will gather outside the British embassy in Tehran on Wednesday to protest "the Britons' illegal entry" into Iranian waters, the ISNA news agency reported.
Miliband said on Monday that the yacht was stopped by Iranian naval vessels on November 25.
Organizers of a race in which the yachtsmen were planning to take part said the vessel had reported problems with a propeller en route from Bahrain to Dubai in the Gulf.
British television identified the five sailors as Oliver Smith, Sam Usher, Oliver Young, Luke Porter and David Bloomer.
In March 2007, Iranian Revolutionary Guards forces seized eight British navy sailors and seven marines in the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that separates Iran and Iraq. They were freed unharmed the following month.
Three Americans who crossed into Iran from Iraq in July are still detained and face spying charges. Their families say they were hiking and strayed across the border accidentally.
