Diplomats seeking the release of British sailors and Royal Marines seized by Iran failed to engage early enough with the senior Iranian politician who paved the way for them to be freed, an MPs' report said yesterday.
Eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Marines were taken prisoner on March 23 while conducting searches of ships in Iraqi waters, but it was not until seven days later an approach was made to Dr Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, the report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee revealed.
The committee said it was "odd" the UK waited so long to ask to speak to the man who experts suggested was "very much in charge" of the incident in Tehran, and said an approach "could and should have been made much earlier". The report was also very critical of the decision to allow the released personnel to sell their stories to the media, and urged the Foreign Office (FCO) to make public exactly who in the Navy was responsible.
The decision was "a disturbing failure of judgment" and it was "wholly unsatisfactory" that a review of the government's media handling of the incident failed to identify the individual who took it, said the cross-party committee.
On diplomacy, the report said that "although there may have been some tactical mistakes, it is difficult to fault the FCO's overall approach".
The committee rejected the argument expressed by commentators, including former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, that Britain had been made to look "weak".
There was no evidence that the UK struck any sort of deal to secure the release of its citizens, it found.
MPs said Iran deserved "strong censure for its illegal and provocative seizure of a group of lightly-armed British personnel who posed no threat to its security", but the committee noted the government's attempt to put pressure on Tehran through the UN was "much less successful than it had hoped". "Although the government was making every effort to resolve the situation quietly through bilateral diplomacy in the first few days of the crisis, its application to speak to Dr Ali Larijani could and should have been made much earlier than 30 March," the report stated.
MPs also "recommended" the government's response to the report should include whether an internal review is being carried out. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "There are a number of specific recommendations which we will consider carefully before replying in due course."
Meanwhile, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari yesterday said US-Iran talks focusing on the deteriorating security situation in Iraq will be held in two days in Baghdad amid US allegations Tehran is supporting Shi'ite militias.
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