-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: March 29, 2007 6:44:01 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Boundary-Line Cited by Blair in Dispute with Iran INVENTED
by Britain
The British Government has published a map showing the coordinates
where
British sailors were captured by Iran, Ambassador Craig Murray writes.
The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map
does not exist.
It has been drawn up by the British Government.
Only Iraq and Iran can agree on their bilateral boundary, and they
have never done this.
The boundary published by Blair's government is a fake with no
legal force.
Even accepting the British coordinates for the position of both HMS
Cornwall
and the incident, both were closer to Iranian land than Iraqi land.
Boundary Dispute at Root of
Iranian Seizure of British Sailors
By Jim Teeple
Washington
29 March 2007
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-03-29-voa64.cfm
Britain continues to insist that it was within Iraqi territorial
waters when Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized two small patrol
craft and 15 sailors and marines. Iran maintains the boats were in
Iranian waters. As VOA correspondent Gary Thomas reports, the
waters in question have long been a point of dispute between Iran
and Iraq.
Vice Admiral Charles Style stands in front of a diagram depicitng
when British soldiers were captured
With modern navigation devices such as the Global Positioning
System (GPS) a ship can determine its position down to scant
meters, a far cry from the days when ships navigated by a sextant
and the stars.
But as Craig Murray, former chief of the Maritime Section of
Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, points out, even the
most sophisticated navigational devices are of no help in the
current British-Iranian dispute because there is no clearly
demarcated boundary.
"The major problem is, knowing where the ships were exactly doesn't
help you know precisely where the boundary line is because that's
what nobody really knows, because it [the boundary] has never been
agreed," he explained.
The British boats were in the Persian Gulf outside the mouth of the
Shatt-al-Arab waterway, a winding 193-kilometer tidal river that
runs between Iran and Iraq. The waterway and the Gulf waters into
which it flows have long been a source of conflict between the two
neighbors. Control of it was one cause of the bloody Iran-Iraq War
that ran from 1980 to 1988.
Kaiyan Kaikobad is a professor of international law at Durham
University in Britain who has advised the United Nations and
written extensively about Persian Gulf maritime disputes. He notes
that Iran and Iraq have still not agreed on a formal maritime
boundary in that area where the Shatt-al-Arab flows into the Gulf.
"Once you're in the Gulf, there is no lateral boundary that the two
countries have agreed upon by virtue of a treaty," he said. "Now
it may be that over these 15, 20, 25 years, they have a kind of de
facto arrangement."
British troops operate out of Basra, the Iraqi port near the Gulf.
Under U.N. mandate, Royal Navy ships patrol the coastal area of
Iraq. Craig Murray, who also served as ambassador to Uzbekistan,
says the shallow shipping lanes shift with tides and seasons,
making even a rough demarcation extremely difficult.
British Foreign Office spokesman Barry Marston tells VOA that
Britain realizes that there are questions about the maritime
boundary in the area. But, he adds, the British craft were not in
any area of dispute.
"We are aware there are some issue over in clarity over the Iraq-
Iranian [demarcation], over the exact borderline along parts of
that coast," he said. "That is an area, however, where there is no
doubt whatsoever. This has never been a stretch where there has
been any dispute over. So there's very, very little doubt that
Britain is absolutely in the right here."
Kaiyan Kaikobad says that even if British craft had strayed into
what Iran claims as its waters, under international law, Iran had
no right to seize the sailors.
"Even if a naval vessel, a warship, from Iraq or from the United
Kingdom strays into Iranian territory by mistake, even if that is
the case, you can't arrest it," he said. "You can't board that
craft. All that you do is you can ask that vessel, 'we want you to
leave.' You can persevere in that. But you can't go about
arresting them. You can't go about keeping their people in
captivity."
U.S. warships are engaged in exercises in the Persian Gulf.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Thursday the maneuvers
are not aimed at threatening Iran, but to make sure the Persian
Gulf remains open to commerce.
"The message is, we have 170,000 American troops in Iraq, we have
obvious security interests throughout the Gulf region. The Gulf is
not an Iranian lake," he said. "It is an international waterway.
And we will protect, as we have since the late 1940s, to protect
the right of companies and nations to use the Gulf for
international commerce."
Craig Murray thinks there is a simple solution to the current
crisis, just have Iran and Iraq commit to negotiations on a
maritime boundary.
"What they would say was, 'we acknowledge that these waters are
disputed.' The British side would say, 'we thought we were in
Iraqi territorial waters but we acknowledge there was a dispute and
maybe Iran thought we were in their territorial waters, we had no
intention of being in their territorial waters.' And both sides
would say, 'we agree it would be a very good idea for Iran and Iraq
to negotiate a boundary at an early date.' And then Iran could let
the sailors go. That kind of agreement shouldn't ought to be
difficult at all," he said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday Britain would not
negotiate for the release of the detained service members, and
again demanded their immediate and unconditional release.
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