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U.S. Thanks Iran for Resolving the Crisis It Created
(Bloomberg) Eli Lake - After the return of 10 U.S. sailors from Iranian custody on Wednesday, a senior State Department official briefed reporters about five phone calls between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif. When British sailors were detained in 2007 by Iran in a similar incident, it took nearly two weeks for Iran to release them. In this case it took less than a day. But Iran's handling of the situation violated international norms, and to pretend otherwise is to define deviancy down. If the two small U.S. sea craft transiting between Kuwait and Bahrain strayed into Iranian territorial waters because of a mechanical failure, international maritime law spells out the appropriate response - and in a situation like this, it does not give Iran the right to board these boats or detain the sailors, as the Iranian navy did. Senator John McCain, a former Navy pilot, pointed out: "Under international law, sovereign immune vessels like navy ships and boats do not lose their sovereign immune status when they are in distress at sea. Under international law, sovereign immune naval vessels are exempt from detention, boarding, or search. Their crews are not subject to detention or arrest."