Tehran frees ‘a number of’ Turkish troops

The Turkish military headquarters confirmed that "an incident" between Iranian border guards and Turkish troops, on duty and constructing an observation tower near to Turkey’s Gulveren/Gurbulak border gate with Iran, had ended peacefully.

Turkey’s state-run Anatolian news agency quoted officials at the Turkish military headquarters saying that the incident between the two sides took place on Tuesday. It did not give any further details.

Iranian television said Iranian border guards arrested "a number" of Turkish troops and sent them back to Turkey after an investigation proved they had mistakenly crossed the border into Iran.

Unconfirmed reports on Wednesday said 25 Turkish soldiers crossed into Iran in search of militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and were detained by Iranian forces.

The incident coincides with the detention Monday of two British sailors and six Royal Marines who strayed into Iranian waters in their patrol boat along the Iran-Iraq border.

Iran and Britain have issued a series of reports about the status of the six marines and two sailors detained on Monday. On Wednesday night, Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam television reported that a second round of talks on the British detainees had been postponed until Thursday.