New sailor letter: Withdraw UK troops
The captured UK sailors and marines were based on HMS Cornwall
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Thursday, 29, Mar 2007 08:14
Iranian authorities have released a second letter from one of the captured British sailors detained in Iran.
Leading Seaman Faye Turney, 26, the only female member of the 15 navy personnel captured last week by Iranian forces, calls for British forces to prepare an exit strategy from Iraq.
"Isn't it time for us to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and let them determine their own future?" she asks.
LS Turney also states that the vessel in which she was operating when detained had "unfortunately" strayed into Iranian territorial waters.
"Even through our wrongdoing, they have still treated us well and humanely, [for] which I am and always will be eternally grateful," she writes.
Observers have questioned the veracity of the letter and have suggested that it may have been written under duress.
The Foreign Office has maintained its contention that the personnel, serving onboard HMS Cornwall, were 1.7 nautical miles within Iraqi territorial waters when they were surrounded by Iranian forces.
Britain has attempted to garner international support for its stance at the UN today, seeking backing in New York for a draft statement which says security council members view the situation with "grave concern".
The Iranian government has itself appeared to up the stakes. After intimating that LS Turney would be released, Tehran said the weight Britain was placing on the incident would slow the release of the captive sailors.
"We even said that the grounds were ready for the release of a woman among the British sailors," Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's supreme national security council, said on Iranian state television.
"But if we are faced with a fuss and wrong behaviour then this would be suspended and it would not take place."
On Wednesday foreign secretary Margaret Beckett told the House of Commons that the government had frozen all bilateral business with Iran and had begun a "new phase" of diplomacy in its efforts to gain the release of the captured personnel.
In a later move subsequently condemned by the Foreign Office, Iranian television broadcast footage of the 15 British personnel, including comments by Ms Turney, explaining the apparent circumstances surrounding her arrest.