Iran's Border Muddles Captivity Issue (AP)

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Iran's Border Muddles Captivity Issue

By ROBERT H. REID
The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 27, 2007; 3:05 PM

-- Shifting river channels, national rivalries and decades-old grudges
all complicate what should be a simple question: Whether British sailors
were in Iraqi or Iranian waters when they were seized by Iranian forces.

The British insist the 15 sailors and marines were in Iraqi waters of the
Shatt al-Arab waterway when they were captured Friday by naval units
of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. At the time, the British were
inspecting an Indian-flagged ship suspected of smuggling cars.

Iran is equally insistent that the incident occurred in its territorial waters.
Officials in Tehran say they are investigating whether the British strayed
into Iranian waters intentionally.

Neither side has released map coordinates to prove its case. Even if one
side did, it is unclear that would be enough to convince the other.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032701310.html