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Breaking news from Sky:

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1140353,00.html

DIPLOMATS WITH SAILORS

Eight Royal Navy servicemen held in Iran have been released into the custody of British diplomats, the Foreign Office has confirmed.

The officials joined the group on a plane as the men were moved from the Gulf area to the capital Tehran.

It is thought they will go to the British embassy in the capital but it is not known when they will return to the UK.

Iran detained the men after their patrol boats strayed into Iranian coastal waters close to the Iraq border.

The Foreign Office said British officials in Tehran had been given assurances the six Royal Marines and two Royal Navy sailors would be freed later today.

Diplomats from the British embassy in Tehran visited the men in the remote south-western town of Bandar Mahshahr where they have been held since their arrest on Monday.

There had been hopes that they would be released yesterday, but the on-off plans for the handover appeared to have hit an last-minute hitch.

The men were pictured on state television blindfolded again, walking in a line along the shore of the Shatt al Arab waterway.

The row threatened to develop into a full-blown diplomatic crisis.

However, authorities in Tehran appeared to have decided that they did not want to escalate the dispute further and accepted the British explanation that the men were on a routine mission when they strayed off course.