Bush Calls for Iran to Immediately Release British Sailors
CAMP DAVID, Md. _ President Bush on Saturday weighed in for the first time on Iran’s seizure of 15 British sailors in the Persian Gulf last week, calling for their immediate release and labeling their capture “inexcusable.”
But he rejected a suggestion that the United States might trade Iranians it’s holding in Iraq for the British and didn’t answer when asked if the United States might consider taking military action against Iran if it doesn’t free the British soon.
“The British hostage issue is serious because the Iranians took these people out of Iraqi water,” Bush said. “It’s inexcusable behavior.”
Bush made his comments during a joint news conference with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who spent the afternoon at Camp David, the second meeting in three weeks between the two leaders. Brazil was Bush’s first stop on a seven-day tour of Latin America in early March, where the two leaders announced joint efforts to promote ethanol use and production.
On Saturday, the two leaders spent five hours in what a White House aide described as a strategy session on world trade talks that have foundered on Brazil’s insistence that industrialized countries abandon agricultural subsidies. Lula later said the meeting had been “extraordinary and productive.”
Few foreign leaders have been as aggressively courted by Bush as Lula, a factory worker who as a leftwing union leader decried the United States as an imperialist power. But Lula has struck a rapport with Bush, setting aside their ideological differences and taking a roll-up-your sleeve approach to the bilateral relationship.
It was the seventh meeting between the two men and the first official visit by a Latin American president to the Camp David retreat since 1991.
Bush even sounded accepting of Lula’s defense of an investment in Iran by the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras. Lula said the investment didn’t violate U.N. sanctions and that Brazil and Iran had “no political divergence.”
Bush said Lula had “just articulated a sovereign decision.”
But Bush was less than conciliatory about Iran’s holding of the British sailors.
“Iran must give back the hostages,” he said. “They’re innocent, they did nothing wrong, and they were summarily plucked out of waters.”
Iran seized the sailors on March 23 while the British were conducting what their government said was a routine search of a merchant vessel off the coast of Iraq. But Iran claimed the British were inside Iranian territorial waters and on Saturday accused the British government of “arrogance” for refusing to apologize.
Iran has broadcast video of the captured sailors eating and appearing in good health. One of the crew, Faye Turney, appeared in the broadcast saying that the British forces had “trespassed.” British officials condemned the broadcast, and have said the sailors were nearly two miles inside Iraqi waters when they were detained.
Bush said he would continue to back British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s efforts to resolve the standoff peacefully, though he left no doubt that he favored no British apology as a condition for the sailors’ release.
“I support the prime minister when he made it clear there were no quid pro quos,” Bush said.
The United States is believed to be holding at least five Iranians captured in Iraq. Iran and the Iraqi government have protested that the Iranians were in the country legally when Americans seized them from a diplomatic compound in Baghdad, but the U.S. has claimed the men were members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and were assisting in training illegal armed groups.
Iran also has said it believes Americans have seized a sixth Iranian diplomat who reportedly disappeared in Baghdad, but the Americans have denied that he’s being held.
The crisis over the 15 British sailors comes amid worsening relations between Iran and the West over Iran’s nuclear program, which the United States and its allies say includes a program for developing nuclear weapons. The United States also has accused Iran of providing deadly roadside bombs to Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq.
In recent weeks, the United States has ordered two aircraft carrier task forces to the Persian Gulf and last week the U.S. conducted naval maneuvers off the Iranian coast amid persistent rumors, denied by the Bush administration, that the United States is planning to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.
Bush also continued to defend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the wake of congressional calls for Gonzales to step down because of his contradictory explanations of his role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. “I will remind you there is no credible evidence there has been any wrongdoing.”
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(c) 2007, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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