U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made no expression of regret in his talks with Iran’s foreign minister to seek the release of 10 U.S. sailors who were taken into Iranian custody in the Gulf, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.
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Kerry, who was already hosting Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and their two Filipino counterparts at the State Department, excused himself from those meetings to begin the telephone diplomacy after he became aware of the incident.
The images show the US sailors with their hands on their heads, while others show Iranians inspecting the machine guns onboard and going through papers.
The U.S. Central Command later said: “The video appears to be authentic, but we can not speak to the conditions of the situation or what the crew was experiencing at the time”.
The nine men and one woman were detained Tuesday after at least one of their boats suffered mechanical problems off of Farsi Island, an outpost in the middle of the Persian Gulf that has been used as a base for Revolutionary Guard speedboats since the 1980s. The sailors had been detained aboard two U.S. Navy patrol boats in the Gulf Tuesday.
A USA defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Clearly this staged video exhibits a sailor making an apology in an unknown context as an effort to defuse a tense situation and protect his crew”.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told The Associated Press late Tuesday U.S. time that the Riverine boats were moving between Kuwait and Bahrain when the U.S. lost contact with them.
“The US and France’s aircraft carriers were within our range and if they had continued their unprofessional moves, they would have been afflicted with such a catastrophe that they had never experienced all throughout the history”, the IRGC commander warned, according to Fars. He repeated that message in follow-up calls, the official said.
USA officials also blamed mechanical trouble for the incident.
Due to a number of non-nuclear sanctions on Iran, US-Iran economic relations are not possible, Araghchi said.
Kerry has a close relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif after the recent nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers.
The Revolutionary Guard released images of the US sailors before their release, showing them sitting on the floor of a room.
“As long as Iran continues its outrageous activity overseas, it is our right and it is our duty to make sure that we are not complicit in funding its terrorism, its human rights abuses, and its other activity that is contrary to the USA national interests and global stability”, Rep. Peter Roskam, an Illinois Republican, said.
The Guard’s 200,000-strong force is different from the regular Iranian military and is charged with protecting the ruling system.
But Araghchi said the new core’s redesign would be done by an Iranian company, citing a “reliance on domestic capabilities” to modernize the reactor.
The U.S. Navy issued a statement Wednesday after Iranian state media announced the sailors had been freed.
Psaki’s statement prompted Blitzer to comment, “If the president does mention Iran, does mention the Iran nuclear deal and praises it without even mentioning anything about these 10 American sailors, that could be awkward”.
US Vice President Joe Biden rejected reports that Washington had offered Iran an apology over the incident.
Summary⎙ Print Nuclear negotiator Seyed Abbas Araghchi said that by January 17, the date of the final implementation of the nuclear deal will be announced.
In April 2015, the Guards seized a container ship belonging to Maersk, one of the world’s major shipping lines, in the Gulf because of a legal dispute between the company and Iran.
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But Rouhani has faced criticism from hardline groups about the nuclear deal, with opponents warning it could lead to “infiltration” by the United States.
