TEHRAN, Apr. 19 (MNA) – Iran on Wednesday hailed reports that fifteen British troops, captured by Iran last year, were not in Iraqi waters as the British government had publicly claimed.

The British Defense Secretary Desmond Browne has been accused of misleading Parliament over the capture of the British sailors in the Persian Gulf last spring as it emerged that they were not in Iraqi territory, The Times reported on Thursday.
The Conservatives said that Browne was “less than frank” after The Times disclosed Ministry of Defense papers showing that the Britons were not seized in Iraqi waters.
Last year “we proved to the British government that the country’s military had illegally entered into Iranian waters by giving information provided by GPS on the exact location of British troops,” an informed Foreign Ministry official, who requested anonymity, said on Saturday.
The sailors and marines were seized on March 23, 2006 near the Arvand Rud (Shatt al-Arab) waterway, which forms the boundary between Iran and Iraq, and were released two weeks later by President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who gave them new suits and bags of presents.
“The House of Commons foreign affairs committee in its report on February 2007 officially admitted that, according to the documents and maps provided by Iran, the British troops were detained in Iranian waters and the information given by the British government were deliberately misleading,” the official added.
He criticized the British Ministry of Defense for refusing to present its report about the incident to the Commons foreign affairs committee, saying, “This shows that the British administration has been trying to hide the reality form the public.”
BA/PA END MN