Iran: 10 US sailors undergo questioning

Iran released a set of videos of USA sailors who were released Wednesday after being captured and detained overnight, raising questions about whether the country’s hard-line military force mistreated the Americans or violated global law by using them for propaganda purposes.

The 10 sailors were brought to a safe place and treated well, Revolutionary Guard naval commander General Ali Fadawi said.

The sailors were on two small boats in the Persian Gulf between Kuwait and Bahrain when US controllers lost contact with them on Tuesday. Fadavi said the Guards’ investigation showed a broken navigation system had led the sailors into Iranian waters.

The sailors were quickly released, however Iranian state media released a video of them being detained and apologizing for entering its waters.

Earlier, a senior defense official said that Iranian authorities have assured US officials that they will allow the sailors to continue their travel.

The U.S. Central Command later said the “video appears to be authentic but we can not speak to the conditions of the situation or what the crew was experiencing at the time”.

An Iranian news agency reported Tuesday that the sailors had been detained for “snooping”, but neither US or Iranian officials made any statements to support that claim. But a spokesman for the U.S. State Department denied that, saying it was a rumor that Secretary of State John Kerry had apologized to Iran.

Speaking on CBS This Morning, Vice President Joe Biden insisted the USA doesn’t have to apologize for a problem that the boat had, and Secretary of State John Kerry insisted the U.S. “had nothing to apologize for”.

The Navy realized the boats were missing when they failed to appear shipside in the Gulf for refueling on their way to Bahrain, one defense official said.

“There was no official US apology given to the Iranians”.

The Pentagon confirmed they had been freed and that there was no indication that the sailors had been harmed.

He said the U.S. Navy’s presence “disturbed the security of the area” and criticized its maneuvers. United States government officials said the two leaders spoke at least five times over the span of 10 hours on Tuesday.

USA and Iranian officials had scrambled to defuse the situation, which unfolded as Iran prepares to finally implement a nuclear deal with world powers aimed at ending the Islamic republic’s long global isolation.