Tehran, March 30: One of the 15 British service members held captive in Iran appeared Friday on the government's Arabic-language TV and apologized for entering Iranian waters "without permission."
In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Iran cannot gain anything from the current crisis. The British Foreign Office denounced the broadcast and said displaying the captives for "propaganda purposes" was "outrageous."
The serviceman, Royal Marine rifleman Nathan Thomas Summers, said he was aware that the incident in which he was seized was the second time since 2004 that British military personnel had entered Iranian waters.
"Again I deeply apologize for entering your waters," Summers said in the clip broadcast on Al-Alam television. "We trespassed without permission."
In London, the British Foreign Office denounced the broadcast and said displaying the captives for "propaganda purposes" was "outrageous."
Summers was shown sitting with another male serviceman and the female British sailor Faye Turney against a floral curtain. Both men wore camouflage fatigues with a label saying "Royal Navy" on their chests and a small British flag stitched to their left sleeves.
The three were among 15 British sailors and marines detained by naval units of the Revolutionary Guards on March 23 while patrolling near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway for smugglers.
Britain has demanded their release, insisting that they were in Iraqi waters at the time they were intercepted. But Iran has demanded that Britain acknowledge that its sailors had violated Iranian waters, with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki saying Thursday that such an admission would help to secure their release.
Minutes before Summers appeared on TV, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said that he had given a statement.
"We entered Iranian waters without permission and we were detained by Iranian coast guards. I would like to apologize for this to the Iranian people," the agency quoted him as saying.
"Since our detention on March 23, everything has been very good and I'm completely satisfied about the situation," Summers added.
The TV showed pictures of the light British naval boats at the time of the sailors' seizure. The helicopter flying in the background was British, the Al-Alam newscaster said.
Iran has demanded that Britain acknowledge that its sailors had violated Iranian waters, with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki saying Thursday that such an admission would help to secure the release of the 15 service members.
Earlier this week, it appeared the two countries were moving toward a resolution of the crisis. Mottaki told reporters Wednesday that Turney would be freed shortly.
However, the Iranians were angered by tough talk out of London, including a freeze on most bilateral contacts and a British move to refer the issue to the UN Security Council.
On Thursday, the council expressed "grave concern" over Iran's seizure of the military personnel and called for an early resolution of the escalating dispute.
As tensions spiked again Thursday, the Iranians rolled back on their offer to free Turney.
On Friday, however, the Turkish Prime Minister's office said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had indicated his government is willing to reconsider freeing Turney, who is married and has a young daughter.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Ahmadinejad on Thursday evening, said Erdogan's spokesman, Akif Beki. Ahmadinejad told the Prime Minister that Iran was "willing to reconsider the issue of the release of the woman crew member," Beki said.
Iran claims the British sailors and marines, part of a Royal Navy force patrolling the Persian Gulf for smugglers, were operating in its waters when captured last Friday. The incident came several months into the escalating standoff between Iran and the United Nations over Tehran's nuclear programme.
An Iranian news agency reported earlier in the day that Iran's Foreign Ministry sent a message to the British embassy in Tehran calling for a guarantee by London to avoid violating Iranian territorial waters in the future.
Until now, Iran has said the matter could only be resolved if Britain admitted its sailors were trespassing.
Crude oil prices kept soaring Friday as a jittery market worried that oil exports could be affected by the British-Iranian crisis.
After settling at a six-month high a day earlier, light, sweet crude futures rose another 45 cents to $66.48 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Trading settled Thursday at $66.03 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange — the highest settlement price since September 8, 2006, when crude finished at $66.25.
Bureau Report