Images released by Iran on Wednesday showed the ten captures sailors kneeling with their hands held over their heads and a video shows one of the sailors offering an apology, saying the Navy boats accidentally drifted into Iranian waters.
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NBC is reporting Iranian military forces seized two U.S. Navy boats Tuesday and are holding them in custody on Iran’s Farsi Island in the middle of the Persian Gulf, senior U.S. officials told NBC News. Farsi Island sits in the Persian Gulf in between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and is fortified by Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
When we initially contacted Pelosi’s office for their evidence, we quickly heard back from her spokesman, Drew Hammill, who said, “The leader misspoke”.
Those talks included several emergency calls Tuesday to secure the release of 10 USA sailors after Iran detained them in the Persian Gulf.
“Everybody should be aware of the fact we have been in touch with the Iranians and they have assured us that our sailors are safe and that they’ll be allowed to continue their journey promptly”, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. It is common for USA troops to keep their dogtags, with identifying information including social security numbers, in the laces of their right boot. The Iranians did not interfere, the defense official said.
Mr. Kerry noted that until recently, the two sides hadn’t spoken in 35 years.
They were picked up by Navy aircraft and other sailors took control of their boats for the return voyage to Bahrain, where the USA 5th Fleet is based.
After a series of follow-up conversations with Carter, Dunford and Rice, Kerry spoke to Zarif again at 2:00 p.m., followed by another call around 3:15 p.m. It was during that second call that Zarif told Kerry he was getting indications from those holding the sailors that they would be released at some point after dawn, and were being fed and well treated. Stephens said the priority now is “determining… how exactly these sailors found themselves in Iran”.
Iran said the British sailors were released when their government apologised to Iran, but London denied that it had offered any apology. But many questions remained about the incident.
Video footage showed the Navy personnel with their hands on their heads as they were apprehended.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif tweeted that he was happy to see “dialogue and respect, not threats and impetuousness, swiftly resolved the sailors episode”.
Iranian television broadcast what appeared to be a brief interview with one of the American sailors, who said the crew apologized for entering Iranian waters by mistake.
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 10 sailors were taken aboard the cruiser where they were given an initial medical evaluation and were then flown to the aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman.
“The [Obama] administration is pretending as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred”, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona said in a statement, pointing out that under global law, navy boats do not lose their sovereign immune status when they are in distress at sea. Britain maintained that its service members never entered Iranian waters. Even so, under global maritime law, such “innocent passage” should have brought an instruction to leave those waters, not a seizure and detention, according to Navy manuals citing the worldwide standards.
The U.S. Central Command later said the video “appears to be authentic” – but that it couldn’t speak to “the conditions of the situation or what the crew was experiencing at the time”.
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The incident came amid heightened tensions with Iran, and only hours before President Barack Obama gave his final State of the Union address to Congress and the public. The US and its allies are on the cusp of lifting sanctions on Iran following an agreement on the country’s nuclear programme in July.
