Britain made an appeal for international pressure to be brought to bear on Iran Thursday over the capture of 15 of its soldiers, a move which caused Iran to cancel the touted release of one of the captives.?

 

Iran's decision appeared to nix any chance of a swift resolution to a crisis which has further enflamed a Middle-East already fretting over nuclear ambitions, and sent the oil market tumbling.

Britain maintains that the 15 sailors and marines were seized last week in Iraqi waters and has produced GPS images to back up this claim.

 

IRNA news agency quoted an Iranian naval official as rejecting Britain’s allegations and stating the UK boats trespassed into Iranian territorial waters on several occasions before being seized and that taped evidence proved this.

 

"The release of a female British soldier has been suspended," Iran's Mehr news agency quoted military commander Alireza Afshar as saying. "The wrong behavior of those who live in London caused the suspension."

 

Oil prices rocketed to six-month highs as the world braced for a potential suspension of Iranian oil supplies.

 

Last weekend, the UN slammed new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, a move prompted by Washington and London pointing the finger at Iran for supporting insurgents in Iraq.?

 

"With the excuse of controlling ships that go to Iraq, they want to make it a norm to violate other countries' sovereignty," Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on state television. “But they should know that the cost of this is not cheap."

 

Britain is looking to the Security Council to slam detention of the sailors and government sources have revealed that Britain would be considering a range of measures at an EU foreign ministers' meeting this weekend.

 

Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said Britain was not on a collision course with Iran and wished to resolve the standoff swiftly.

 

Analysts have claimed Iran deliberately caused this wrangle to remove focus from its nuclear energy program.

 

Britain has suspended all official travel between itself and Iran and has voided all visa issues and supports for trade missions, a move not emulated so far but strongly supported by American and European allies.

 

"We have widened the net of arguing our case. First of all we've brought in the EU. Today we're doing so at the UN," Blair's spokesman said.

 

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini was quoted by IRNA news agency as saying that the "interference of sides who are not related to the issue will not help resolve it"

 

(China Daily via agencies March 30, 2007)