“Our technical investigations showed the two U.S. Navy boats entered Iranian territorial waters inadvertently”, the IRGC said in a statement carried by state television.
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The Navy realized the boats were missing when they failed to appear shipside in the Gulf for refueling on their way to Bahrain, one defense official said.
“At the White House, we reached the conclusion that further elevating the situation by including it in the State of the Union address would not be the most effective way of securing the release of our sailors”, he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Carter were meeting their Philippine counterparts in one of the ornate diplomatic rooms on the eighth floor of the State Department. Iran held them for 13 days, with the captives saying they were kept in cold, stone cells, blindfolded and fearing execution, and coerced into falsely saying they had entered Iranian waters.
In Washington, a defence official said the Navy has ruled out engine or propulsion failure as the reason the boats entered Iranian waters.
A search-and-rescue effort was launched – including sending a U.S. Navy vessel inside Iranians waters due to concern the sailors could have been overboard and in the water.
The detention of the sailors raised alarm in Washington but after informal talks with Tehran, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had been set free. “For the most part… the gear that we deployed with was largely there when we got the boats back”.
The U.S. Navy issued a statement Wednesday after Iranian state media announced the sailors had been freed.
“I’m very proud of that tradition of the U.S. Navy”, he said.
He declined to say where they were going or give details on their identities, but a senior defence official said they were heading to a USA military facility in Qatar.
The official spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday on condition of anonymity as the information had yet to be made public. They ended up in Iranian territorial waters at least 50 miles offshore and were detained by the Iranian military at Farsi Island, which is home to an Iranian naval base.
It also harkens back to the height of the Vietnam War, when North Vietnam released staged videos of US service members in captivity who were being tortured behind the scenes.
The Navy was able to track the missing boats as they were apparently towed to a military pier on Iran’s Farsi Island – where the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps happens to operate a base.
It also underlined that the United States has pledged to prevent such mistakes in the future.
Both men cited the sailors’ speedy release as a textbook example of diplomacy, with Kerry thanking “Iranian authorities for their cooperation”.
Kerry last week said the agreement would be implemented “in the coming days”.
The U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet had no immediate comment or confirmation of the release.
Moreover, the International Atomic Energy Agency will build up its capacity to inspect, which Iran is subject to during the lifetime of the deal whenever there is a suspicion of any activity that violates the deal, Kerry said.
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Iran’s armed forces chief, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, said the incident should demonstrate Iranian strength to “troublemakers” in the U.S. Congress, which has sought to put pressure on Iran after the nuclear deal.
