Tehran: Iran announced it would today (June 23, 2004) free an eight-man British Royal Navy unit arrested for straying into its territorial waters along the border with Iraq after the team made a televised confession and apologised for their "mistake". "The British team will be freed today," Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi told the official news agency IRNA. A source close to the sensitive talks between Iran and Britain told the two sides were discussing the modalities of freeing the Royal Marines and sailors, who were detained on Monday by the Islamic republic's hardline Revolutionary Guards.

A member of Iran's armed forces general staff, Ali Reza Afshar, told that "the order to free the boats and the crew" had been issued during the night.

The decision was taken in light of the British troops' insistence during interrogation that their infringement of Iran's territorial waters along the Shatt al-Arab waterway along the southernmost part of the Iran-Iraq border had been accidental, he said.

A team of Iranian officials and British diplomats were expected to travel to the sweltering far southwest of Iran during the day to supervise the release.

"We will be making an official announcement in the very near future," British embassy spokesman Andrew Dunn said.