Sailor standoff: Blair ready for ‘the next level’

“I hope we manage to get them (the Iranian government) to realise they have to release them,” Blair said in an interview with GMTV. “If not, then this will move into a different phase.”

Asked what that meant, Blair said: “Well, we will just have to see, but what they should understand is that we cannot have a situation where our servicemen and women are seized when actually they are in Iraqi waters under a UN mandate, patrolling perfectly rightly and in accordance with that mandate, and then effectively captured and taken to Iran.”

Blair said his primary concern was the welfare of the Royal Navy personnel, which include Faye Turney, 26, the only woman among the crew.

“What we are trying to do at the moment is to pursue this through the diplomatic channels and make the Iranian government understand these people have to be released and that there is absolutely no justification whatever for holding them.”

Iran said today that the 15 sailors are healthy and being treated well. Turney had been given privacy.

“They are in completely good health. Rest assured that they have been treated with humanitarian and moral behaviour,” said Mohammad Ali Hosseini, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.