British crew back home

LONDON (AP) — A British navy crew returned home today from Iranian captivity, easing a tense two-week standoff.

The 15 sailors and marines broke open champagne and changed into fresh uniforms on the flight home. After landing, they smiled and stood at attention before being whisked by helicopter to the Royal Marines base at Chivenor, southwest of London.

Wednesday’s announcement of their release in Tehran was a breakthrough in a crisis that had escalated over nearly two weeks, raising oil prices and fears of military conflict in the volatile region.

The move to release the sailors suggested that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not want to push the standoff too far.

Iran did not get the main thing it sought - a public apology for entering Iranian waters. Britain, which said its crew was in Iraqi waters when seized, insists it never offered a quid pro quo, either, instead relying on quiet diplomacy.

Syria, Iran’s close ally, said it played a role in winning the release.

Prime Minister Tony Blair welcomed the sailors’ return Thursday but called for continued international pressure on Tehran following the deaths of four servicemen in an attack in southern Iraq earlier in the day.

The soldiers were killed in an ambush involving a roadside bomb and small-arms fire, the military said. It was the biggest loss of life for British forces since Nov. 12, when four were killed while on patrol on the Shatt Al-Arab waterway in Basra.

“On the one hand we are glad that our service personnel return safe and unharmed from their captivity, but on the other we return to the sober and ugly reality of what is happening through terrorism in Iraq, terrorism designed specifically to thwart the will of the international community,” Blair said.

“Now it is far too early to say that the particular terrorist act that killed our forces was an acted committed by terrorists that were backed by any elements of the Iranian regime, so I make no allegation in respect of that particular incident,” Blair said.

Blair said Britain had managed to secure release of crew without any deal or negotiations.

On Wednesday, Iranian state media reported that an Iranian envoy would be allowed to meet five Iranians detained by U.S. forces in northern Iraq. A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said American authorities were considering the request, although an international Red Cross team, including one Iranian, had visited the prisoners.

Another Iranian diplomat, separately seized two months ago by uniformed gunmen in Iraq, was released and returned Tuesday to Tehran. Iran accused the Americans of abducting him, a charge the U.S. denied.

Those developments led to speculation that the release of the Britons had been connected to the events in Iraq. Both Iran and Britain denied any connection.

Ahmadinejad timed Wednesday’s announcement so as to make a dramatic splash, springing it halfway through a two-hour news conference.

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