Iran has denied it seized the Britons to force the release of Iranians held in Iraq, and Britain has steadfastly insisted it would not negotiate for the sailors' freedom.

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Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency said earlier Wednesday that an Iranian envoy would be allowed to meet with the five detained Iranians in Iraq but gave no further details.

A US military spokesman in Baghdad said, however, that American authorities were still considering the request. The spokesman, Maj. Gen. William C. Caldwell, said an international Red Cross team, including one Iranian, had visited the prisoners but he did not say when.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told The Associated Press that the case of the five Iranians detained in Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish self-governing region in northern Iraq, had no connection with the British captives.

Zebari, a Kurd, said his government had been relaying Iranian requests for a meeting with the five detainees, but could not confirm the request had been approved.

In a commentary, the Iranian news agency said the movement on the Iranian prisoner issue was due in part to "the new American political and military appointments in Iraq."

The agency was referring to Gen. David Petraeus, who assumed command of US forces in February, and Ryan Crocker, who began work as the new US ambassador to Iraq last month.

US troops detained the five Iranians on Jan. 11, accusing them of links to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard network that was supplying money and weapons to insurgents in Iraq.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said President Bush had approved the strategy of raiding Iranian targets in Iraq as part of efforts to confront the government in Tehran.

Iraqi Kurds, like the country's Shiites, maintain close ties with Shiite-dominated Iran, despite their warm relationship with the US - and have been upset over the arrests in their own capital.

Iran denounced the raid and insisted that the five were diplomats who were engaged exclusively in consular work. The Iraqi government said they were arrested at an office that was supposed to become an Iranian consulate.

The British newspaper The Independent reported this week that the Irbil raid had escalated tensions between the US and Iran and may have set the stage for the March 23 seizure of the British naval personnel.

Also Wednesday, a Kuwaiti newspaper quoted Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem as saying Damascus was also mediating the case of the 15 Britons.

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