WASHINGTON — A crisis over the seizing of two U.S. patrol boats in the Persian Gulf was averted Wednesday when Iran returned the craft and released their crews as Pentagon officials struggled to explain how the boats had ended up near a major Iranian naval base.
Their quick release was hailed by the Obama administration as an unintended benefit of the new diplomatic relationship with Iran established by the nuclear accord negotiated between Tehran and the United States and five other nations in July. The accord is expected to go into effect next week, ending the oil and financial sanctions imposed on Iran during the past decade, and giving it access to around $100 billion in frozen funds.
Thanking the Iranians for their cooperation, Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that "we can all imagine how a similar situation might have played out three or four years ago."
Kerry negotiated the release in at least five phone calls with Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister. Senior U.S. officials described Zarif as clearly worried that the episode could sink the nuclear accord on which he and President Hassan Rouhani have staked their legacies.
Kerry, one of his top aides said, in essence told Zarif at one point that "if we are able to do this in the right way, we can make this into what will be a good story for both of us."
But it is still not clear how much influence Zarif had over the events: The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has been engaged in an open power struggle with Rouhani's government. It is not clear who decided to release the sailors.
Even as Kerry was describing the release Wednesday morning, U.S. military officials were offering new explanations about how the two 49-foot patrol boats had ended up in Iranian territorial waters.
After first suggesting that a mechanical failure had disabled at least one of the boats, they acknowledged that there was no mechanical problem. But they could not explain how the military had lost contact with both of the boats.
Iranian government-controlled television was playing video Wednesday of one of the sailors apologizing for entering Iranian territorial waters.