Solana plans to phone Ahmadinejad

Berlin: European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana plans to phone Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a bid to resolve the current stand-off over the arrested 15 British sailors who illegally entered Iran's territorial waters on March 23, the online site of the weekly Der Spiegel news magazine reported on Saturday, according to IRNA.

"It has to be resolved. The Iranian leadership has to understand that this is not a bilateral problem but a problem of the EU," said Solana who was attending an informal meeting of the EU's 27 foreign ministers in the north German port city of Bremen.

Iran has made clear that the arrest of the British sailors was a bilateral issue and warned other countries of interfering in the case.