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Iran releases video of naval incident to counter U.S. charge

PHOTO: AFP

CALLING ATTENTION: Families of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails demonstrate demanding their release as U.S. President George Bush makes his way to Bethlehem on Thursday.

DUBAI: Iran has released a video to buttress its earlier assertion that the alleged near-confrontation between Iranian speedboats and American warships, as claimed by U.S. authorities, never took place.

In the footage shown by Iran’s Press TV, an Iranian commander in a speedboat is shown establishing radio contact with an American warship.

“Coalition warship number 73, this is an Iranian patrol,” the Iranian commander says in English. In response a voice with an American accent is heard: “This is coalition warship number 73. I am operating in international waters.”

The Iranian commander wearing an orange jacket and Kefiyeh scarf then says: “Request your present course and speed!” At one stage, both sides agree to switch their radios from channel 16 to channel 11.

As the communication proceeds normally, the tape shows an American warship on which number 73 is inscribed. Two other U.S. vessels are also visible, while a helicopter hovers overhead. Crew members of the Iranian boat can also be heard communicating in Farsi language intermittently.

Iran had earlier stated that a recording of the incident shown on a U.S. video was fake, as it was based on file pictures. In that video an Iranian voice is heard as saying: “I am coming at you; you will explode.”

The controversy over the incident, in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, has continued to make headlines during U.S. President George Bush’s ongoing visit to West Asia. Mr. Bush warned Iran during the course of a press conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday that the consequences of such an incident in the future would be severe.

The U.S. President stressed that the findings of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in December did not alter his stance on Iran.

The NIE, in its report released in early December, had concluded that Tehran had ceased its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.

Mr. Bush visited the West Bank on Thursday, where he expressed confidence that a peace deal between the Palestinians and Israel would be signed before the end of his Presidency in January 2009.

His host, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, however, stressed that the Palestinian people were aspiring for an independent state with “Jerusalem as its capital and an end to the refugee problem.”

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