Britain sees no fast solution to row with Iran

London: Britain said on Tuesday the next 48 hours would be critical in the diplomatic crisis with Iran over Tehran's seizure of 15 British sailors and marines in the Gulf, but played down expectations of a rapid solution.

Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett stressed the importance of diplomacy rather than military intervention.

"I would urge you to be cautious in assuming that we are likely to see a very swift resolution to this issue," she told reporters. "We are not seeking confrontation. We are seeking to pursue this through diplomatic channels."

The crisis between the two countries began when Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized the sailors on March 23 in the northern Gulf, where the British navy has been searching shipping in an effort to prevent smuggling.

Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Monday he believed bilateral diplomacy could resolve the crisis quickly. Britain responded by saying it too would like early talks to end the row.

"This is a very critical time and the most important thing is that we get our people back safe and sound ..." British Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters.

"The next 48 hours will be fairly critical," he told a radio station in Scotland.

The dispute centres on where the sailors were when they were seized. Britain insists they were in Iraqi waters on a routine U.N. mission, but Tehran says they were in its waters.

"We can definitely see a diplomatic solution on the horizon," said Ali Ansari, director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland.

"It seems to me that what is in the offing is a delegation of some sort will go to Tehran, to ... reassure the Iranians that there will be a mechanism in place to ensure that this will not happen again."

Experts on international borders say the boundary between Iranian and Iraqi waters in the Shatt al-Arab waterway is poorly defined, which may give Britain and Iran room to "agree to disagree".