High-level diplomacy cited in freeing sailors
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry spoke at least five times by telephone with his Iranian counterpart in intense diplomacy that led to the release Wednesday morning of 10 U.S. sailors detained overnight when their boats strayed into Iranian waters.
The incident was rapidly resolved as Iran and world powers move toward implementation of a nuclear deal within the next few days.
Kerry thanked Iran for cooperating in the sailors’ release.
“All indications are they were well taken care of, provided blankets and food,” Kerry said in a speech at the National Defense University. “It is clear that today this kind of issue was able to be peacefully resolved and efficiently resolved, and that is a testament to the critical role diplomacy plays in keeping our country safe, secure and strong.”
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter thanked Kerry after the sailors’ release and couched the incident in humanitarian terms, noting that “the U.S. Navy routinely provides assistance to foreign sailors in distress.”
In his initial call with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif early Tuesday afternoon, Kerry was assured that the sailors — nine men and one woman — would be set free quickly, said a senior State Department official on condition of anonymity. Their final call, to confirm the release, took place late at night, after President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.
The anonymous official attributed the incident’s resolution to the “very direct line of communication at a senior level” that was established during the nuclear negotiations.
Three years ago, before talks between the two countries started, the official said, “it undoubtedly would have been much more complicated to unwind, with the risk of all sorts of ancillary events that would have been unpredictable.”
According to a Navy statement, the sailors left Farsi Island, where they were detained, just before noon in Bahrain on the same boats that were intercepted. They were picked up by Navy aircraft and transferred ashore, eventually ending up in Qatar, while other sailors took charge of the vessels, called riverine command boats, and continued on to Bahrain.
U.S. Central Command in a statement said the crew was undergoing “the reintegration process and we will continue to investigate this incident.”
“What matters most right now, however, is that our sailors are back safely,” it added.
REPORTS IN IRAN
Iran’s Fars News Agency quoted a statement from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard saying the sailors were released after “investigations showed that they had gone astray during their voyage in the Persian Gulf.” In its statement, the Guard added that the “illegal entry into Iranian water was not the result of a purposeful act.”
“After it became clear that the U.S. combat vessels’ illegal entry into the Islamic Republic of Iran’s waters was the result of an unintentional action and a mistake, and after they extended an apology, the decision was made to release them,” the Revolutionary Guard’s statement said.
“The Americans have undertaken not to repeat such mistakes,” it added. “The captured marines were released in international waters under the supervision of the IRGC Navy.”
The Revolutionary Guard also released images of the U.S. sailors, showing them sitting on the floor of a room. They looked mostly bored or annoyed, although one appeared to be smiling. The woman had her hair covered by a brown cloth. The pictures also showed what appeared to be their two boats.
State TV later released more video and photos of the Americans apparently surrendering on their knees, their hands behind their heads. It also showed machine guns and ammunition they had on board.
According to a senior U.S. defense official, the images have raised concerns that Iran could have pilfered some personal information from the captives. It is common for U.S. troops to keep their dog tags — with identifying information that includes Social Security numbers — in the laces of their right boots.
The defense official said an Iranian video showing a sailor appearing to apologize for intrusion into Iranian water “raises questions if the sailors broke the code of conduct.”
Military regulations stipulate that a captured service member is required only to give “name, rank, service number and date of birth,” and says that captives will “evade answering further questions” to the utmost of their ability.
Iranian TV ran video of one of the sailors apologizing for the intrusion into Iranian waters.
“It was a mistake. That was our fault, and we apologize for our mistake,” the unidentified sailor is shown saying in English.
The U.S. Central Command later said: “The video appears to be authentic, but we cannot speak to the conditions of the situation or what the crew was experiencing at the time.”
State Department spokesman John Kirby said there was “zero truth” to reports of a formal U.S. apology, citing only Kerry’s expression of thanks to Iranian officials.
“Nothing to apologize for,” Kirby wrote in a tweet.
Vice President Joe Biden, speaking later to CBS This Morning, repeated that the U.S. government had not issued an apology.
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Biden said. “When you have a problem with the boat, you apologize [that] the boat had a problem? No, and there was no looking for any apology. This was just standard nautical practice.”
BOATS BROKE DOWN
The exact circumstances surrounding the incident remained unclear.
The sailors were part of Riverine Squadron 1, based in San Diego, U.S. officials said.
The two small boats, used largely on coastal waters and on rivers, had been en route from Kuwait to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf when they disappeared from the Navy’s scopes. Senior administration officials said the vessels appeared to have experienced mechanical trouble or ran out of fuel, but Fars said the sailors had been “snooping.”
A U.S. defense official said the small boats were believed to have been within 12 nautical miles of Iran when they broke down.
Ships attached to the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier strike group began a search, as did aircraft from the Truman. The officials also spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident publicly.
The Iranian military took the boats and their crews to Farsi Island, where Iran maintains a naval base.
Iranian and U.S. ships often come within hailing distance in the Persian Gulf during patrols and maneuvers. The Persian Gulf is also the route for more than onefifth of the world’s oil tanker traffic, through the Strait of Hormuz, which is jointly controlled by Iran and Oman.
The quick resolution stood in contrast to the 2007 seizure by Iran of 15 British sailors and marines who were searching for a merchant ship in the Persian Gulf. Iran held them for 13 days, with the captives saying they were kept in cold, stone cells, blindfolded and coerced into falsely saying they had entered Iranian waters.
Their detention by the Revolutionary Guard occurred under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A
day after they were seized, the U.N. Security Council imposed more sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment.
Four Americans of Iranian origin remain held by Iran: journalist Jason Rezaian of
The Washington Post; former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati of Flint, Mich.; Saeed Abedini, a pastor from Boise, Idaho; and Siamak Namazi, a businessman and the son of a politician from the shah’s era.
NUCLEAR DEAL IMPLEMENTATION
Just hours after welcoming Iran’s release of the U.S. sailors, Kerry said in a speech at the National Defense University that implementation of the nuclear agreement will take place soon, without specifying an exact date.
Others in Washington and elsewhere said the announcement could come within two days. In Vienna, a senior diplomat from one of the six countries that cut the deal with Iran said it would be formally declared implemented “most probably Friday.” Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
In Tehran, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday was the day.
He said the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to verify Iran’s compliance Friday and that Zarif and European Union foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini would then announce “implementation day,” according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
“I believe the parties will perform their undertakings by Friday and Saturday and Sunday, and the implementation day would be announced on that time,” Araghchi said.
He said the foreign ministers who negotiated the July accord — including Kerry, Zarif and their counterparts from the United Kingdom, China, France, Germany and Russia — may meet to deliver a joint statement. Kerry is expected to be in Europe this weekend on other business.
Under the terms of the deal, once Iran meets its obligations to curb its nuclear program, it is to receive sanctions relief worth about $100 billion. For the U.S. that means suspension of nuclear-related sanctions on Iranian oil, banking and commerce.