BRITAIN:Britain has said it is ready to fly a delegation to Iran as part of attempts to secure the release of the British naval crew who were taken captive last month. However, London was still waiting yesterday evening for a green light from Tehran for talks to begin.
The delegation, probably consisting of naval officers, legal experts and diplomats, would not formally negotiate the release of the 15 sailors and marines seized by Iran, British officials insisted, but would try to produce a way out of the crisis for both sides by discussing how to avoid another incident in the northern Gulf.
"The next 48 hours will be fairly critical," Tony Blair said yesterday as Downing Street braced itself for a news conference today by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has hitherto had little to say about the crisis.
"If they want to resolve this in a diplomatic way, the door is open," Mr Blair said. But if the negotiations stalled, Britain would "take an increasingly tougher position", he warned.
Speaking later, UK foreign secretary Margaret Beckett made clear that Britain was not considering the use of force. Mr Blair "is not talking, or intending to imply, anything about military action", she said.
"We are not seeking confrontation. We are seeking to pursue this through diplomatic channels."
Ms Beckett said that, 12 days into the hostage crisis, British diplomats had still not been given access to the captive naval crew, and the UK foreign office had still had no "formal response" to a note sent to Tehran on Friday, proposing the dispatch of the expert delegation for talks.
There has been almost daily contact between the Iranian ambassador in London, Rasoul Movahedian, and David Triesman, a foreign office minister. They were due to hold their eighth meeting last night.
Britain's ambassador in Tehran, Geoffrey Adams, has also been meeting officials in the Iranian foreign ministry, but those contacts have not been fruitful British sources say. They believe Iranian officials may be unwilling to commit themselves until Mr Ahmadinejad has spoken.
Meanwhile, an Iranian diplomat abducted in Baghdad in February was freed yesterday amid speculation over his captors' identity and whether his release was part of a deal to release the 15 British captives.
Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary at Iran's embassy in Iraq, had been missing since he was abducted in Baghad's Karrada neighbourhood on February 4th by a group of men who witnesses said wore Iraqi special commando uniforms.
Iran said US forces in Iraq ordered the abduction, but US military officials denied the claims. Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said yesterday that Mr Sharafi had been fit when released, but declined to speculate over his jailers' identity.
Iraqi foreign ministry sources said they were also "trying hard" to convince US officials to release five Iranians seized by US forces during a midnight raid in the Kurdish capital, Arbil.
US president George Bush, however, said "there should be no quid pro quos when it comes to the hostages". US and Britain did not request the release of Mr Sharafi, but the Iraqi government may have decided to intervene.
The UK foreign office is still analysing remarks made on Monday by Ari Larijani, the head of Iran's national security council, who has the ear of the supreme leader, Ali Khameini. He is also a former senior member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who seized the British naval crew on March 23th. In an interview with Channel 4 News, he called for a delegation to come to Iran to judge whether the crew had been in Iranian or Iraqi waters as a first precondition for their release.- ( Guardian service)