“The IRGC is loving this”, Toumaj said in an email, referring to the series of videos that have been released Wednesday purporting to show the arrest. “That was our fault and we apologize for our mistake”.
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One unidentified sailor says, “It was a mistake”.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told The Associated Press late Tuesday U.S. time that the sailors’ boats were moving between Kuwait and Bahrain when the U.S. lost contact with them.
He was asked by CNN host Jake Tapper how Obama could praise Iran and congratulate his own administration when Iran has just committed a highly provocative action against the USA when it seized the American sailors and their two patrol boats near Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf. The men have established a rapport over two years of tough negotiations leading up to the nuclear deal.
“What we saw so clearly before with the Russian reset we’re seeing again with Iran – that policies of engagement with adversaries simply don’t work”, he says. They had said on Tuesday that Tehran assured them the crew and vessels would be returned safely and promptly.
The sailors were being flown to a USA military facility in Qatar, where they were to be debriefed and given medical exams. “Because they know they can get away with it while President Barack Obama is in office”.
Iran is expected to satisfy the terms of the nuclear deal in just days.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he was pleased with the sailors’ release and he thanked Kerry for his diplomatic efforts. And then you see the way they treat us, with guns pointed at these young sailors’ heads. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive incident publicly.
Fadavi said Iran had concluded that “this trespassing was not hostile or for spying purposes” and that the sailors had been in Iranian territory “due to a broken navigation system”.
-Lolita C. Baldor in Washington.
Earlier, White House Communications Director Jen Psaki also made the same statement in response to a question by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer before Obama’s State of the Union address.
The sailors were later taken ashore by US Navy aircraft, while other sailors took charge of the boats and headed towards Bahrain, which was their original destination.
The sailors were taken off their ship Tuesday and held overnight on an island in the Persian Gulf, according to the New York.
And John Kerry spent hours on the phone with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif coordinating that “positive” story.
Kerry and Zarif grew acquainted through the recent nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers.
In a further potential strain on bilateral relations, the US Supreme Court Wednesday waded into a sensitive case over whether the families of victims of attacks Iran is accused of financing or facilitating should finally receive $1.75 billion in compensation from frozen Iranian funds.
“I think we can all imagine how a similar situation might have played out three or four years ago, and the fact that today this kind of issue can be resolved peacefully and efficiently is a testament to the critical role diplomacy plays in keeping our country safe, secure, and strong”, Kerry said.
For the Obama administration, the budding Kerry-Zarif relationship offers opportunities and pitfalls.
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If the U.S. navy vessels meant to attack Iran’s Farsi Island, the country would have reacted differently, he noted. Those were the words of Vice President Joe Biden on CBS This Morning, explaining why the whole incident was no big deal.
