Posted on 06/06/2007 2:25:19 AM PDT by familyop
DUBAI (Reuters) - Three Finnish men working for a mobile phone company in Dubai have been detained by Iran while fishing near a disputed island in the Gulf, the Finnish embassy said on Wednesday.
The three had apparently drifted into Iranian-controlled waters accidentally while on an angling trip from the United Arab Emirates, said Esa Hurtig, charge d'affaires at the Finnish embassy in Abu Dhabi.
Mobile telecoms equipment firm Nokia Siemens Networks told Reuters the three men worked for it in the trade and tourism hub of Dubai.
"There are three Finnish citizens who were fishing and strayed into an off-limits area near Abu Musa island. This is a sensitive area and it happens," Hurtig said.
"They were detained by the Iranians. We are trying to resolve this issue. I think this will be resolved." The three were detained on Saturday.
Earlier this year, Iran released a German and a Frenchman who had been held for more than a year after being picked up near Abu Musa while on a fishing trip from Dubai. The pair had been convicted of illegally entering Iranian waters.
"We have been talking to the government of Finland, who have been reaching out to their Iranian counterparts," Nokia Siemens Networks spokesman Barry French said.
The United Arab Emirates and Iran have full diplomatic ties and strong trade links, and are embroiled in a three-decade dispute over three strategic islands in the Gulf, through which a third of the world's sea-borne crude oil passes.
SEEKING EARLY RELEASE
"Iranian authorities have told us that they are in good condition, but we have not been able to contact them directly," Finish Foreign Ministry official Pasi Tuominen told Reuters.
Finnish ambassador to Iran, Heikki Puurunen, said the embassy was seeking a meeting with Iranian officials on Wednesday. So far, he told Reuters, contacts with Iranian officials had been only by telephone because of a national holiday on Monday and Tuesday.
"We don't know where they are (being held)," he said.
Two Swedish men, convicted and accused of espionage after being arrested in 2006 taking photographs of "sensitive military sites" on another Iranian island in the Gulf, were freed in April in what Tehran said was an "act of clemency".
Iranian Revolutionary Guards also detained 15 British military personnel aboard two small boats in the northern Gulf in March, triggering a diplomatic storm.
Britain denied the sailors had strayed into Iranian waters. They were freed after 13 days.
The UAE released 12 Iranian sailors last month detained in an area north of Abu Musa, one of the three disputed islands which the UAE claims and Iran controls.
(Additional reporting by Rex Merrifield in Helsinki and Edmund Blair in Tehran)
Boy, all that EU style capitulation and friendliness-to-the-point-of-suicide sure is paying off!
Those anglers should have been aware of Iran’s “catch and release” program.
When I was a kid, I knew some old Finns who had come to Michigan’s Copper Country right after WWI to work the mines. (Before the G.D. unions drove the mines out of business). They were tough as nails WWI veterans. I certainly hope that Finland has not lost its national spine as part of the “vanilla” EU.
I wonder how many Iranians have strayed into the US or Finland or England.
Why are civilized people anywhere near the haven of savagery, precivilized barbarism, vicious anti-Christian and anti-Jewish anger and cultist fundamentalism?
Because Dubai is where the big bucks are right now.
My question is- why don’t we hire the Iranian border guards? Those suckers don’t miss anybody.
Well, if I know the Fins, they aren’t talking.
If you are Finnish or know a Fin you will understand.
I thought my family was getting in trouble again.
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