When he granted the 15 British sailors and Marines their freedom in a theatrically stage-managed announcement Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had joked with one of them: “So, you came on a mandatory vacation.”
This morning, it began to feel like a real vacation. The 14 men and one woman who had been held for 13 days in Tehran were driven in the predawn hours to Tehran's airport. Still dressed in the ill-fitting suits the Iranians had given them and clasping ornate gifts from the Islamic regime, they boarded a British Airways flight.
There, in business-class seats, they sipped champagne and read the London newspapers, learning for the first time that many of them have become household-name celebrities and figures of great controversy in Britain and around the world.
At midday, after having changed back into their uniforms, they landed at London's Heathrow Airport and were whisked by helicopter to a British military base for debriefing as their families waited eagerly to welcome them.
The sailors had been seized at gunpoint in the waters between Iran and Iraq by Iranian Revolutionary Guards on March 23, triggering a dangerous showdown between Britain and Iran, whose leaders claimed that they had trespassed on Iranian waters. British officials denied this.
The move to release the sailors suggested that Iran's hard-line leadership decided it had shown its strength but did not want to push the standoff too far.
While both Britain and Iranian officials had described the release as a victory for their nations Wednesday, on Thursday the assessments were much more sober.
“There aren't any victors, but we've had success in getting our captives back,” said Chris Rundle, a former British diplomat to Iran. “And any propaganda victory that Iran may have won among its own people and on the Arab street is outweighed by the distrust that the world now has for Iran.”
Prime Minister Tony Blair was even more reserved in a statement he made to reporters this morning. He insisted that nothing had been offered in exchange for the release. There have been reports suggesting that Iranian officials held captive in Iran had been released as a quid pro quo.
“What has actually happened is that we have managed to secure the release of our personnel … “without any deal, without any negotiation, without any side agreement of any nature.”
However, Iranian state television reported on Thursday that an adviser to Iran's top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Iran received a letter of apology from Britain before the release of 15 military personnel.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser on international affairs to Ayatollah Khamenei, said Iran had achieved its “objectives” in the political standoff with Britain over the arrests.
“Iran set a condition that Britain accepts there was a violation [of Iranian waters] and gives apologies. On Tuesday we received a letter of apology,” Mr. Velayati was quoted as saying.
Syria, Iran's close ally, said it played a role in winning the release.
Mr. Blair, meanwhile, said on Thursday that while the negotiations have brought British and Iranian officials in close contact, it is unlikely to improve the difficult political tensions between Iran and the West over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
“At the same time as we are open to bilateral dialogue and to pursue the lines of communication that have been opened up in the last two weeks, we have to hold absolutely firm in relation to support from any aspect of the Iranian regime for terrorism,” he said.
Indeed, he suggested that Iran has become a supporter of terrorism in Iraq, pointing to a bomb that killed four British soldiers in Basra on Thursday.
“The general picture, as I have said before, is there are elements at least of the Iranian regime that are backing, financing, arming, terrorism in Iraq,” Mr. Blair said.
The sailors are likely to face questions and some criticism in Britain for the surprising level of gratitude they expressed to their captors.
On Iranian TV this morning, they were shown drinking tea with their captors. Faye Turney, the only woman among the captors and a focus of media attention, was shown waving and saying “Teshakkor” — Persian for “thank you,” and making another statement, in English, that seemed to support the Iranian interpretation of events: “Thank you for letting go, and we apologize for our actions, but many thanks for having it in your hearts to let us go free,” she told an Iranian TV interviewer.
In other developments, Iranian state media reported on Wednesday 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.
With reports from Reuters and Associated Press
