Seized Iranian Diplomat to be Released

Just appeared on fp of NYT:

An Iranian diplomat seized two months ago in Iraq has been released, Iran's official news agency reported Tuesday, citing informed sources in Tehran.

Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, will return to the Iranian capital later Tuesday, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

The report gave no indication of why or how Sharafi had been freed.

The news is accompanied by an other item indicating that the issue of the captured UK Marines might also be nearing a resolution.

The next two days are ''fairly critical'' to resolving the dispute over a seized British navy crew, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday, after Iran's chief international negotiator offered a new approach to end the standoff with Tehran.

Is it all starting to make sense now?

http://www.nytimes.com/...

http://www.nytimes.com/...

•  A neat cause/effect relation?

  by Lepanto on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:03:20 AM PDT

•  Has anybody else read this?

  Is this a reputable source??

  http://www.rense.com/...

  by Boru on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:03:59 AM PDT

  •  Take that site with a HUGE grain of salt.

    by citizenx on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:15:01 AM PDT

    •  What is the story with it?

      Friend just sent me the link.
      Is the guy a nut??

      by Boru on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:29:24 AM PDT

      •  I guess we will find out Friday

        but I personally ain't buying it.

        by citizenx on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:41:51 AM PDT

        •  Checked out the wiki page for source

          does not sound that reliable.  
          But with this admistration, who knows.

          by Boru on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:52:17 AM PDT

    •  Maybe you prefer this source?

      'US ready to strike Iran on Good Friday'

      by unclejohn on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:58:09 AM PDT

      •  Russian sources.

        I am glad that Russia (and China) look with disfavor on any attack in Iran.
        From Debkafile,  a news-analysis-and-Israeli-propaganda site:

        Senior Russian general warns Washington to think twice before attacking Iran

        April 3, 2007, 2:22 PM (GMT+02:00)

        The RIA-Novosty news service quotes Yury Baluyevsky, head of the armed forces general staff as sayin Tuesday, April 3: Such an attack would have global implications. "Inflicting damage on Iran’s military and industrial potential might be realistic, but winning [the war] is unachievable – its reverberations would be heard across the world."

        Baluyevsky said that the US should bear in mind negative experience in other countries of the region. "Our strategic partners," he said, have already got bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq." He warned that if the US goes to war with Iran as well, the world may see America decline as "the world’s mightiest and most powerful state."

        by revbludge on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 07:21:43 AM PDT

  •  Crappy looking site,

    but they list Dahr Jamail, a well-known and respected journalist, as a "columnist." Dunno what's up w/that.

    by revbludge on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 07:13:12 AM PDT

    •  Yeah kind of eerie the whole thing.

       But it is consistent with the overreach and hubris thus far exhibited by this Bush regime.

      by Boru on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 08:11:26 AM PDT

  •  It's consistent with article in Independent today

    that links the recent capture of British sailors & marines to an earlier botched attempt by the US military in January to nab high ranking Iranian security officials visiting northern Iraq. According to the Independent:

    A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

    Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

    [...]

    Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil - and the angry Iranian response to it - should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. The two senior Iranian officers the US sought to capture were Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, the chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to Kurdish officials.

    by mobiusein on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 07:27:56 AM PDT

•  Mere coinkidink, right?

  Those two events have nothing to do with each other, right?

  How stupid do they think we are...

  Also see Meteor Blades FP - he's spot on.  The British crew just was "handy" to kidnap in retribution for our stupidity.

  by kfred on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:13:30 AM PDT

•  My,My Imagine that, and on it goes.

  I wonder if the Brits actually thought they could strong arm Iran?

  by Owllwoman on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:13:34 AM PDT

•  All this means, unfortunately, is that

  Cheney and his thugs don't think we're ready to attack Iran yet.

  by corvo on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:17:20 AM PDT

•  Will be interesting to hear

  to hear the differences of how the "detainees" were treated.

  by Da Rock on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:21:34 AM PDT

•  Let's hope so

  The US and UK should release the Iranian diplomats, and Iran should release the sailors.  

  Two interesting tangential notes on this whole issue.

  (1)  Hostage taking (and holding) resonates more in Iran and Iraq, and not merely because of the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis.  Both sides during and after the Iran-Iraq war held the other sides' prisoners as hostages long after the war was over. There are thousands of Iraqis who spent up to 20 years as POWs in Iran, and likewise, many Iranians spent decades in Iraqi jails.  Whenever we hear of captured British sailors, we think of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, but most people in Iran and Iraq think of the precedent for holding prisoners of war for decades.  

  (2)  The US probably grabbed the wrong diplomats when they raided the Iranian consulate in Erbil.  A friend of mine in Erbil told me that they raided the civilian Iranian consulate - that they actually didn't know where the Iranian military liaison office was, and that the people they detained were not even the ones they were looking for!  At any rate, the US illegally seized some Iranians and made up lies about who they were and why they were in Iraq.  That's not really so different from what Iran did with the British sailors.

  It saddens me that Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister, has to go running around trying to clean up these messes.  He is an honorable and reasonable guy who wants to maintain decent relations with both the US and Iran, and is frustrated trying to babysit these two adolescents - Bush and Ahmedinejad - who are both incapable of restraint or common sense.  Zebari opposed the US raids on Iranian diplomats, and likewise opposed the Iranian capture of British sailors.  He has plenty to worry about without having to deal with these petty, stupid, avoidable tit-for-tat problems.

  by ivorybill on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 07:13:31 AM PDT

•  Iranian diplomat

  and the British sailor connection.
  The UK Independent makes a case to connect the two situations.... very interesting.

  http://news.independent.co.uk/...

  by PrgrsvArchitect on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 07:13:54 AM PDT