Iran Releases U.S. Sailors Accused of ‘Trespassing’
By THOMAS ERDBRINK, HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGERJAN. 13, 2016
Photo
A boat similar to the one Iran seized in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday. Credit Mc1 Latunya Howard/U.S. Navy, via Associated Press
The defense secretary, Ashton B. Carter, released a statement commending the “timely way in which this situation was resolved” and thanked Secretary of State John Kerry “for his diplomatic engagement with Iran to secure our sailors’ swift return.”
The release of the sailors in less than 24 hours stands in sharp contrast to a similar episode eight years ago that developed into a major international standoff.
In 2007, 15 British marines were arrested by the Revolutionary Guards Navy, which accused them of entering Iranian waters. The sailors were held for 13 days before the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then the president, set them free during a televised farewell ceremony in which they were given new suits and carpets as parting gifts.
A year later, the British Navy released a report saying that its vessels had been in an area with disputed borders between Iran and Iraq.
Iranian analysts across the political spectrum said that the prompt resolution of the latest events reflected how Iran’s relations with the West had evolved since then, particularly with the signing of a nuclear accord in July last year.
“This time, the top leadership of the Islamic republic of Iran is not looking for any tension with America,” said Nader Karimi Joni, a journalist aligned with Iran’s reformists, who added, referring to the years under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “During Ahmadinejad, our whole system sought tension. Now, things have changed. Both sides, America and Iran, are in direct contact and they seek détente. Currently there is no need for anti-Americanism.”
A prominent conservative analyst with ties to the senior leadership echoed those remarks, emphasizing that both sides had sought to keep tensions low.
“This time, the Americans were cooperative in proving their innocence, and they quickly accepted their faults without resistance,” the analyst, Hamidreza Taraghi, said in a phone interview. “The marines apologized for having strayed into Iranian waters.”
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Also playing a role was the strong relationship that has developed between Mr. Kerry and the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, during negotiations on the nuclear deal, Mr. Taraghi said.
“John Kerry and Zarif were on the phone during the past hours, and this helped the problem to be resolved quickly due to their direct contact,” he said.
The semiofficial Iranian news agency Fars said that the boats had illegally traveled more than a mile into Iranian waters near Farsi Island, the site of a major Iranian naval base. It said that members of the Revolutionary Guards Navy had confiscated GPS equipment, which would “prove that the American ships were ‘trespassing’ in Iranian waters.”
The waters in question are a frequent site of intelligence collection by the United States and by Iran and many other gulf countries. The American and Iranian navies frequently encounter each other there.
The detention and release of the sailors comes at a particularly delicate moment in the tense American-Iranian relationship, just days before a nuclear deal is to be formally put in place, under which the United States is to unfreeze about $100 billion in Iranian assets.
That step is to be made after international nuclear inspectors verify that Iran has shipped 98 percent of its nuclear fuel out of the country, has disabled and removed centrifuges, and has taken a large plutonium reactor permanently offline.
The American sailors were aboard two riverine patrol boats — 38-foot, high-speed boats that are used to patrol rivers and littoral waters. One official said the two vessels, which often patrol shallow waters near Bahrain, had failed to make a scheduled meeting with a larger ship to refuel.
Mr. Kerry was notified of the seizing of the sailors while meeting with top Philippine officials and Mr. Carter, an official said. Mr. Kerry broke off the meeting and called his Iranian counterpart, Mr. Zarif. As he walked into the House chamber Tuesday night for President Obama’s State of the Union address, Mr. Kerry said the sailors were “going to get out.”
Many American and Middle Eastern officials say they believe that recent actions by the Iranian Navy against American forces in the gulf may be intended to embarrass Mr. Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani. The Revolutionary Guards was responsible for the military side of the nuclear program, and many of its senior officers have objected to the nuclear agreement.
American and European officials say that the nuclear accord should go into effect sometime next week. That is called “implementation day,” and it is crucial to Mr. Rouhani, who wants to demonstrate before parliamentary elections that he has succeeded in getting oil and financial sanctions lifted, and Iranian funds unfrozen.
On Wednesday, inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Iran to oversee the decommissioning of the Arak heavy-water reactor, which is capable of producing plutonium that could be used to make a nuclear weapon. The removal of the reactor’s core and its replacement with concrete are some of the final steps before the nuclear accord is put in place. The measures are expected to be completed in the next few days, Iranian officials said.
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Many Republicans in Congress have vowed to prevent implementation day from coming. Mr. Obama issued a veto threat on Monday against a House bill that would delay implementation until the president can certify that Iran has reported all of its past work toward designing a nuclear weapon. International inspectors recently declared that Iran had a program “consistent” with weapons work through 2009, but that it had then ceased. Iran has always denied it ever sought a weapon.
Mr. Obama and Mr. Rouhani share the same problem: Their political opponents want to kill the nuclear deal. Both men are determined to see it through, and as the current incident suggests, the hard-liners — in Iran, at least — may be playing a losing hand.
The United States Treasury Department is expected to place some new sanctions on Iran for recent missile tests — which are not covered by the nuclear pact — but that effort has been delayed for reasons American officials will not discuss. A draft of the sanctions declaration was circulated on Capitol Hill just before the new year and quickly leaked.
In the skies and waters of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, Iran and the United States constantly watch each other. American naval ships roam the waters along Iran’s 1,100-mile southern coastline, their radar trained on the shore and on Iranian ships leaving their harbors. Iranian fighter jets patrol the skies, keeping an eye on American combat planes that take off from an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf every time an Iranian jet comes close.
The Navy’s Fifth Fleet maintains a presence in the Persian Gulf, including the aircraft carrier, and it has had several episodes with Iran recently.
Two weeks ago, the Iranian Navy harassed an American carrier and a French frigate in the Strait of Hormuz, launching rockets that passed within 1,500 yards of the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman.
Last year, an Iranian Navy frigate approached a ship in the Gulf of Aden where an American military helicopter had just landed and pointed a heavy machine gun at it for several minutes before turning around, all while an Iranian crew filmed the encounter. The Fifth Fleet, for its part, has its own videotape of the episode.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/world/middleeast/iran-navy-crew-release.html?_r=0
