Iran plays a waiting game with captured British crews after television 'confessions'

Tehran moved to defuse a diplomatic crisis yesterday by promising to release eight British Marines and sailors captured in Iranian waters. The Royal Navy crewmen admitted on Iranian television they had made a mistake and were expected to be handed over to British authorities by early today.

Tehran moved to defuse a diplomatic crisis yesterday by promising to release eight British Marines and sailors captured in Iranian waters. The Royal Navy crewmen admitted on Iranian television they had made a mistake and were expected to be handed over to British authorities by early today.

Yesterday, Iran's Foreign Minister, Kamal Kharrazi, said they had not deliberately crossed the maritime border on Monday. "It became clear for us that the detained British military men had no ill intention and they will be released on Wednesday," he said on state television.

British diplomats travelled to see the sailors in the Iranian province of Khuzestan that faces southern Iraq across the Shatt al-Arab waterway where they were taken. Details of their pending release was in confusion through much of yesterday, as Iranian state media issued conflicting reports. One said the men would not be freed until today because of delays in bringing the Iranian and British delegations to Mahshahr port for final negotiations.

The authorities did not say where or how the release would be carried out, but the most likely route was thought to be a direct return across the Shatt al-Arab, rather than repatriation through the embassy in Tehran.

Apologies by some of the captives on television suggested an attempt to smooth over the episode. "I offer my apologies to my family and the British government and the Iranian people for making this mistake," said a marine on Iran's Arabic-language satellite channel al-Alam, which has led Iranian coverage of the incident.

Two of the men gave their identities on Iranian television. Sergeant Thomas Harkins and Chief Petty Officer Robert Webster, a Royal Navy reservist from Newcastle, confessed to crossing into Iranian waters by mistake.

CPO Webster has worked for 17 years at Newcastle airport as a firefighter. He is married, with two children, and lives in the Denton area. Another detainee was identified as 26-year-old Royal Marine Chris Monan, of Marske, Cleveland. His family were not commenting, after advice from the Ministry of Defence.

The satellite channel al-Alam showed the blindfolded men walking in single file along a beach next to what appeared to be the Shatt al-Arab, dotted by rusting hulks from the wars that have ravaged the area since 1980. Iran has said it will keep the three boats, equipment and weapons captured with the men, whom al-Alam described as members of Special Forces.

The MoD says the men were on a routine mission to give the boats and equipment to Iraqi river police being trained by the Royal Navy in anti-smuggling operations. It has acknowledged that bad weather in the area could have caused navigational errors that led the boats off course.

There had been fears the sailors would be prosecuted, after al-Alam broadcast claims it says came from sources in the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's powerful and ideological elite military corps. In Tehran, the threat was seen as part of a political game played between pragmatic and hardline elements in the regime.

A former foreign affairs minister, Ebrahim Yazdi asked: "Who are these people who can damage our image without being questioned, and who damage our national security?" In an interview with The Independent, he has linked the incident with last month's violent demonstrations outside the British embassy in Tehran.

The reformist Etemad newspaper blamed Britain and the US for trying to create tension to weaken Iranian influence by forcing Tehran to take extreme positions. Pictures on al-Alam showing the men blindfolded appeared to escalate the situation but other footage showed them sitting comfortably on sofas and easy chairs, suggesting they were well treated.

In London, the British Foreign Office said it had dispatched three diplomats from Tehran to Abadan, the port 30 miles east of Basra, to receive the six Royal Marines and two sailors. "They [Iranian officials] have told us they will release them to our custody today," the Foreign Office spokesman said.

Tony Blair's official spokesman also said that Tehran had told Britain the men would be released later in the day. "The Iranian authorities have now confirmed to us that they are going to release them later today, and we remain in discussion with the Iranians through our embassy in Tehran," said the Prime Minister's spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Shatt al-Arab is one of the most controversial stretches of water in the world, with disputes between Iran and Iraq over the exact position of the border. The Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s broke out after Saddam Hussein claimed the whole of the waterway for Iraq.

Iran said the British vessels were 1,000m inside Iranian territorial waters when they were intercepted on Monday.