Britain turned up the heat on Iran yesterday, releasing evidence it said showed 15 military personnel captured last week were operating in Iraqi waters and freezing bilateral contacts until the crisis is resolved.

Iran countered by insisting that British marines and sailors were inside Iranian waters and said the governments of both countries could settle the matter through "close cooperation".

Britain's Foreign Office said however that until the detainees were returned it would halt all official visits between the two countries, suspend the issue of visas to Iranian officials and suspend support for events such as trade missions.

"We are now in a new phase of diplomatic activity. We need to focus all our bilateral efforts during this phase to resolution of this issue," British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told parliament.

"We will therefore be imposing a freeze on all other official bilateral business with Iran until this situation is resolved," she said.

Turkey's private CNN Turk television network quoted Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as saying Teheran would release a woman sailor detained with 14 other British servicemen "today or tomorrow". It gave no other details.

Britain's Foreign Office said it could not confirm the report.

With the United States also conducting naval exercises in the Gulf, the rising tension rattled global markets. Although both Washington and London denied talk that military operations were under way, oil prices jumped by $5 overnight to more than $68 a barrel before they settled back at around $64. Gold jumped to a four-week high on safe-haven buying before prices eased.

The British Defense Ministry said global positioning data showed the British sailors and marines were 1.7 nautical miles within Iraqi waters when they were captured by Iranian gunboats near the waterway that separates Iran and Iraq.

"The boats remained throughout well within Iraqi territorial waters," Britain's Deputy Chief of Defense Staff, Vice-Admiral Charles Style, told a news conference.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the detention of the British sailors was "completely unacceptable, wrong and illegal." The Foreign Office said the Iranian ambassador, in talks there on Tuesday, was summoned for a fifth meeting yesterday.

They were unable to confirm comments by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, quoted by CNN Turk television as saying that Turkish diplomats may be allowed to see the captured Britons. Britain has so far been denied access.

Agencies

(China Daily 03/29/2007 page7)