Iran forces US Navy sailor to apologise on TV

But the sailors were released Wednesday after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had held several phone talks with his Iranian counterpart to demand for their immediate release.

A USA official said Tuesday it is believed one of the American boats had suffered mechanical issues and drifted with the other into Iranian waters.

Kerry also expressed his “gratitude to Iranian authorities for their cooperation in swiftly resolving this matter”.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the manner in which the incident was dealt with was “testament to the critical role diplomacy plays in keeping our country safe”, reports the BBC.

“How was the Iranian behavior with you?” the interviewer then asked, to which the sailor responded, “The Iranian behavior was fantastic while we were here”.

The sailors’ detention has sparked fierce criticism of the Obama administration, Republican lawmakers describing the sailors’ arrest as more reason for the US not to trust Iran in its implementation of the nuclear deal. They ended up in Iranian territorial waters at least 50 miles offshore and were detained by the Iranian military at Farsi Island, home to an Iranian naval base.

This story was first published on CNN.com, “American sailors told by Iranian captors to ‘act happy.'”.

It also showed that the United States can not refuse to observe the rules of the game in this body of water, he added in the letter.

“It was a mistake”, the sailor says.

The news comes less than a month after US officials accused Iran of launching a “highly provocative” rocket test near USA boats passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Navy commander seen in a video released by Iran and talking about being taken into custody while in Iranian waters has family in the Dayton area. “No”, Biden said during an interview with American broadcaster CBS.

“When you have a problem with a boat, do you apologize the boat had a problem?” “And there was no looking for any apology”.

He said Tehran did not consider the U.S. Navy boats violating Iranian territorial waters as “innocent passage”.

Admiral Ali Fadavi, the naval commander of the Guard, said an investigation had established the sailors were led astray by “a broken navigation system”.

A search-and-rescue effort was launched – including sending a U.S. Navy vessel inside Iranians waters due to concern the sailors could have been overboard and in the water.