Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini on Wednesday confirmed that the only woman among the 15 captured British sailors and marines would be released, the official IRNA news agency reported. Hosseini was quoting Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki's announcement to this effect on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Saudi Arabia.

Last Friday, Iran arrested fifteen British naval personnel whilst they were on patrol along the Iraqi border with Iran.

On Wednesday, Iran broadcast the first pictures of the 15 British sailors with female captive dressed in a white tunic and a black head scarf. Tehran has accused the British boats of "trespassing" on Iranian waters.

An infuriated Britain immediately slammed the footage, decrying that it was completely unacceptable for these pictures to be shown on television".

"Obviously we trespassed into their waters," sailor Faye Turney, 26, said on the footage broadcast by Al-Alam, an Iranian state-run television station broadcast around the Middle-East. "They were very friendly and very hospitable, very thoughtful, nice people. They explained to us why we've been arrested, there was no harm, no aggression," she said.

Turney, was also shown in uniform eating with sailors and marines and also smoking a cigarette with eyes downcast.

"My name is Leading Sailman Faye Turney. I come from England. I have served in Foxtrot 99. I've been in the navy for nine years," she said to the camera. The footage also included a handwritten letter allegedly from Turney to her family.

The letter contained the phrase: "I have written a letter to the Iranian people to apologize for us entering their waters." Turney was the only person to be shown speaking in the video.

Another scene appeared to depict the British sailors sitting in an Iranian boat in open waters shortly after their capture.

Iran's accusations that the British boats made a deliberate "incursion" into Iranian territorial waters have been denied by Britain. UK authorities have revealed that at the time of the capture, the soldiers were engaged in routine boarding operations in Iraqi territorial waters under the authority of the UN Security Council Resolution 1723 and the Iraqi government.

Also Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett announced the suspension of all bilateral talks with Iran until all the soldiers are released.

(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily via agencies March 29, 2007)