Iran said today that it was ready to release Shropshire servicewoman Faye Turney, who was seized off the Iraqi coast on Friday.

“Today or tomorrow, the lady will be released,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on the sidelines of an Arab summit he was attending in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Mrs Turney, from Shrewsbury, has a three-year-old daughter.

There was also speculation that the Iranians could be preparing to release video footage of the hostages as the row over the capture intensified.

The first signs of a breakthrough in the crisis came less than two hours after Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to “ratchet up” the pressure on Tehran over the detention of the 15 Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines held since last week.

Earlier, the Ministry of Defence set out the evidence which, it said, showed that the group had been “ambushed” by the Iranians in Iraqi territorial waters.

At a briefing in London, the MoD said it “unambiguously contested” claims from Tehran that HMS Cornwall or its boarding party had strayed into Iranian waters.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions Tony Blair revealed the landing crew was surrounded by six “heavily armed” Iranian vessels and said the crew’s decision not to fight back was “entirely sensible”.

“If they had engaged in military combat at that stage there would undoubtedly have been severe loss of life,” he said.

Earlier, Vice Admiral Charles Style said the boarding party was completing a routine search of a cargo dhow when contact was lost.

He said a helicopter went to the scene and the crew – along with the dhow’s master – confirmed the boarding party were in Iraqi waters.

Vice Admiral Style said: “The action by the Iranian forces is unjustified and wrong and is a matter of deep concern to us and the families of the people taken.”

The group, seized on Friday, includes Mrs Turney and 21-year-old Paul Barton, of Merseyside. Mrs Turney’s three-year-old daughter Molly is being cared for by her husband Adam in Plymouth.
By David Burrows

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