Iran released a set of videos of us sailors who were released Wednesday after being captured and detained overnight, raising questions about whether the country’s hard-line military force mistreated the Americans or violated worldwide law by using them for propaganda purposes.
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Asked in the video if Global Positioning System confirmed that the American boats had entered Iranian waters, the man says, “I believe so”.
Fadavi said earlier that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a phone call the U.S. should apologize for the incident.
A USA military official 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”.
Contrary to initial reports, U.S. officials are now ruling out any mechanical fault aboard the sailors’ two small patrol boats, which were apprehended by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards while en route from Kuwait to Bahrain.
The release was made after Iran had determined the reason for the US naval presence in their territory.
Critics of the administration of President Barack Obama are livid over the affair, saying it demonstrates weakness in the face of Iranian aggression. The Iranian boats escorting the Riverine boats then turned back as they neared the American ship.
Shortly before noon Wednesday the newly-freed sailors used their boats to head towards the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Anzio which was located in global waters just off Iranian territorial waters.
On Wednesday, John F. Kerry has communicated with Iranian authorities for at least five times.
The two U.S. Navy boats seized by Iran with 10 sailors on board were within three miles of Iran’s Farsi Island when the Iranians took them, according to a U.S. defense official directly familiar with the latest information about the incident. “We need to give these guys the opportunity to tell us what was really going on and what the overall context is before we can really know”.
A complete picture of what happened is unlikely to be available for days, but the central cause for the crews’ entering Iranian waters was the navigational slip, which apparently was caused by human error rather than by an equipment malfunction, defense officials said.
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USA officials said there was no government apology to Iran.
