Tension mounts between Iran and UK over the arrest of 15 British Navy personnel. The row over the incident widened after Blair’s administration has published a map showing the coordinates of the incident, which took place last week, claiming that the sailors were 1.7 nautical miles within Iraqi waters when they were captured by Iranian gunboats.
"The boats remained throughout well within Iraqi territorial waters," Britain's Deputy Chief of Defense Staff, Vice-Admiral Charles Style, told a news conference.
But an article on Craig Murray’s website disputed the claims presented by the British government, arguing that only the two neighbors; Iran and Iraq are the ones who should decide on their bilateral boundary.
The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary presented in the map UK released does not exist-it’s nothing but another lie in a long list of lies the government told its nation and the world to justify its actions since it decided to join the American President George W. Bush in his war on Iraq.
But unfortunately the claim was circulated among the vast majority of the world media. The British produced border is indeed fake, with no legal evidence to support it.
The Iran–Iraq boundary extends for 1,458 kilometers between the tripoint with Turkey on Kuh-e Dalanper and the terminal point of the Shatt al Arab in the Persian Gulf. From northwest to southeast, the line utilizes a number of high drainage divides, continues along the western edge of the foothills of the Zagros Mountains, and then crosses a broad plain to the Shatt al Arab. It follows the thalweg of the Shatt al Arab downstream for 105 kilometers (65 miles). The boundary is demarcated throughout by pillars or rivers.
Iran rejects the British coordinates for the position of both HMS Cornwall and the incident, insisting that the 15 British service personnel seized last Friday were in Iranian waters.
"Iran has enough evidence to prove that the British Forces personnel were detained in Iranian waters," Mehzi Mostafavi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, said.
Also Iran's embassy in London issued a statement on Wednesday, saying that the British sailors were 0.5 km inside Iranian waters at the time they were arrested.
Iranian authorities did not say what Iran plans to do with the British personnel, but I hope they resolve the situation as soon as possible before tension escalates and develops into a military confrontation between the two counties.