Britain Takes Case Against Iran to U.N. (03/29/2007)

Judgement

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/29/AR2007032900216.html

A few days following the seizure of fifteen British naval personnel, the United Kingdom has petitioned the United Nations Security Council for a statement that is meant to demand the release of the marines and sailors captured by Iran. Iran's foreign minister has issued a letter of protest saying that the personnel were seized because "of what it calls Britain's violation of its territorial waters, according to Iranian news agencies."

"Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, was quoted by the Iranian IRNA news agency saying that because of Britain's "harsh rhetoric" on the case, the release of Seaman Faye Turney "might be suspended." Larijani also blasted Britain's "incorrect attitude," apparently referring to Britain's insistence that its sailors never entered Iranian territorial waters and were seized while in Iraqi waters, patrolling legally under U.N. mandate. "It was announced that a woman in the group would be freed, but [that]was met with an incorrect attitude," Larijani told Iranian state radio, according to various media reports.
"The British try to change the truth through ballyhoo and hue and cry in order to put pressure on Iran and achieve their goals," Larijani said, according to the news agency."
 
As a Briton myself, I believe that the personnel being held should be released. It is still under debate as to whether they were in Iraqi waters, and thus legal, or not, however Iran has made their point by holding them for this amount of time. I also strongly disagree with parading them on television, but if that is the point trying to be made by Iran then it's made and get on and release them. I have recently read that someone in the Iran government has been talking about putting them on trial, which would be a costly mistake in my opinion as it will only increase hostilities.

Whether or not the personnel were in legal or illegal waters remains to be proved, however they are being punished for the latter already. The problem with the situation is that Britain (and America) have appeared to recently be circling around the invasion of Iran thing. I have read various different accounts by both Bush and Blair about their attitudes towards this, however I feel it would be foolish for Iran to give an excuse to Blair to cause an invasion.
 
Iran is only acting in this manner because of all the sanctions that the U.N. has on their nuclear plants.
 
Iran is just doing this to see how much it can get away with when it comes to WMDs. Everyone in Britain knows that everything that will come out of the soldiers' mouths will be bollocks and everything Iran says will be complete rubbish too. The intial co-ordinates where they said the boat was was in Iraqi waters and when this was pointed out, suddenly they changed it to co-ordinates in Iranian waters. Not to mention the fact that Britain's state of the art GPS has located them 2 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters.

And the UN will support Britain but can't do anything in terms of sanctions as China and Russia would block it as they need Iranian oil.
 
Icey said:
Iran is only acting in this manner because of all the sanctions that the U.N. has on their nuclear plants.
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A teensy bit off topic maybe, but why is the UK allowed to re-arm it's nuclear armoury and Iran isn't allowed nuclear power at all?

To be honest, I don't think the soldiers should've been there in the first place, and I think Blair should apologise and they'll let them go and all will be well. I realise this is an exceptionally idealistic point of view and there's all sorts of reasons why this won't happen, but it should. We didn't have any right to go poking our collective noses into Iraq in the first place.
 
akuchi said:
A teensy bit off topic maybe, but why is the UK allowed to re-arm it's nuclear armoury and Iran isn't allowed nuclear power at all?

To be honest, I don't think the soldiers should've been there in the first place, and I think Blair should apologise and they'll let them go and all will be well. I realise this is an exceptionally idealistic point of view and there's all sorts of reasons why this won't happen, but it should. We didn't have any right to go poking our collective noses into Iraq in the first place.
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UK should swallow their pride and apologize; thats what Iran wanted in the first place. An apology never killed anyone.
 
EU have demanded immediate release of prisoners, but Iran don't seem to be responding to anything. Every day it gets closer to confrontation, especially since the Americans have said that they are doing it to deter from the real issue of Iran's nuclear status.
 
Oh I am betting that Iran will release the marines just in the nick of time before Britain decides to go in by means of force to free them. This is what they've been doing since the Iraq conflict has started. They're just toeing and stepping over the line and winding everyone up.
 
it may just have to come down to military force. but if they do use it iran could easily execute the kidnapped troops,that would just ruin everything and theyd be in war for nothing.
 
If Iran were to execute the troops it would bring a huge amount of problems on them from many angles such as the EU which even they probably don't want to have to cope with.
 
excuse me if this is kinda slow of me to ask but...

Pres. Bush usally always comments on incidents like this by saying "things must be solved with Diplomacy" not long ago a news flash came up again he spoke about the situation at camp david. He said"The Iranians Must release the hostages,there should be No Swapping or meeting any iranian deals at all and we stand behind britian on what ever decision they make

that kind of confused me their. im not sure if hes saying use diplomacy or what.
 
SkarmBlissCounter said:
Iran is just doing this to see how much it can get away with when it comes to WMDs. Everyone in Britain knows that everything that will come out of the soldiers' mouths will be bollocks and everything Iran says will be complete rubbish too. The intial co-ordinates where they said the boat was was in Iraqi waters and when this was pointed out, suddenly they changed it to co-ordinates in Iranian waters. Not to mention the fact that Britain's state of the art GPS has located them 2 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters.
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I think this is mostly true, but I would be inclined to believe that everything the British say is likely to be complete rubbish also..

I mean, there is an obvious comparisson with the shooting of that Iranian passenger jet when the Americans denied their ship was in Iranian waters and it was subsequently found that it was.

Of course I am yet to see anything resembling proof either way.. But tbh at this point it hardly matters..

Have a nice day.
 
Britain is trying to come off as the good guys in this, but regardless of what British GPS systems Iran doesn't have to accept it, because its a British system. Regardless of what anyone says Iran doesn't have to accept it.
 
Britain takes case to U.N.

U.N. does nothing as per the standard (making a resolution and not following through counts as nothing imo).

Britain is left to it's own devices.

It seems that Iran is pushing the limits deliberately, Britain's story of GPS (which is somewhat hard to buy) aside.

I doubt Britain wants another bog down situation like Iraq, so war is probably a distant possibility at most.
 
There is a huge difference between Britain and Iran - that is that the British Government, while incompetent, nevertheless is not, unlike the Iranian government, driven by religious tergiversations. Let us remember that as soon as any crackpot religion is brought into the equation, it is impossible for anyone to argue with it. I would far rather trust the incompetent Mr. Blair and Mrs. Beckett than the errant, probably religious extremist, president of Iran. The Iranian religion (which I will not call Islam, for it is too far removed from Islam to even be anything of the sort) demands that the infidel, debauched West must be overcome by force in order to spread their religion. It claims that any person who kills one of these 'infidels' will, when they arrive in Paradise, be given 70 virgins with which to do as they please. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Iranians will lie in order to capture these 'infidels' - it is their religious teachings, indoctrinated since birth. Given this religious insanity, can we honestly say that it is hypocrisy in allowing Britain to rearm their nuclear weaponry while not allowing Iran to pursue a scheme of their own? - given the Iranian indoctrination and their inherently violent nature, it is true to say that the Iranians would actually USE their nuclear weapons, whereas the British would not. The Iranians do not deserve an apology for the British Navy's 'trespassing' - rather, the British Navy deserve an apology, nay, the whole world deserve an apology from Iran, due to the fear and terror that they and their religious madness invoke upon the civilised world.

It is also alarming that the British Navy is not allowed to fire its guns until being fired upon. This means that when a dinghy of Mohammeds comes at your ship, you are not allowed to fire upon it even once they have tied up and captured the whole crew, assuming that they forgot to turn the safety off their rifles. This is a classic example of British incompetence.
 
It was a boat of 15 not a warship, what could they do about getting captured when outnumbered by Iranian warships?
 
This is one of those situations where everyone will appear to be sat around twiddling their thumbs, while behind the scenes the SAS are planning a rescue of the captives. Iran will know this is happening, and will either (A) release the captives just before the SAS go in, or (B) the SAS will go in and rescue them, and the Iranians will say that they were released to save face, and Britain will go along with it because we don't want to be seen as an aggressive nation.

Either way, Britain will be seen as the guys who will always use diplomacy above anything else, and Iran will look like they are not warmongering.

Life said:
UK should swallow their pride and apologize; thats what Iran wanted in the first place. An apology never killed anyone.
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Why should we apologise for something that we didn't do? An apology would send out the message that the Iranians can get away with what is essentially kidnapping people from International Waters, or worse a foreign countries waters. This is a first step of a very slippery slope, which will only make the Iranians (meaning the leadership I don't know about the regular people of Iran) feel that they can ignore international law.
 
Deputy said:
we are the good guys therefore we can do whatever the fuck we want
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I made it easier to understand for those who don't know what tergiversations means.

Have a nice day.
 
Tergiversations means exactly what it sounds like - tricks used to divert attention away from the real focus - or, garbage.
 
Deputy said:
Tergiversations means exactly what it sounds like - tricks used to divert attention away from the real focus - or, garbage.
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Your post is self defining IMO, lets get back to the real focus here.

PikaPete: how can you be so confident Britain isn't lying about the location of it's troops, The Blair dossier was happy to lie about WMD's in Iraq, I'm not going to say the government is lying purposely or even that it isn't being 100% truthful here, but you have to raise an eyebrow.
 
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