Best to keep things simple
Iran Agrees to Release British Sailors
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 23, 2004; 9:01 AM
ISTANBUL, July 23 -- Iran on Wednesday said it intends to release eight British servicemen who had strayed across the maritime border from Iraq in three patrol boats two days earlier.
However, after initially reporting that the Britons would be released Wednesday, Iranian state media said they might not be freed until Thursday because of the late arrival of a British delegation to pick them up.
A team of British diplomats landed in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan Wednesday and was being taken to the petrochemical center of Bandar Mahshahr for the handover of the British sailors and marines, a state-run Iranian television station reported.
Pushing aside earlier reports that the sailors and marines would be put on trial, a spokesman for the Iranian armed forces said Iran had accepted the explanation that the intrusion was accidental.
