Iran explains US Navy release as 'humanitarian'

Iran has expressed the US Navy's rescue of 13 Iranian fishermen captured by Somali pirates as a "kindness sign".

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said his country had also freed foreign sailors from pirates on occasion.

But he said such doings did not influence largely relations between countries.

The Americans say they released the Iranian fishermen in the Arabian Sea after in excess of one month in imprisonment, and gave fuel and food for them to come back to home.

The rescue was carried out by forces allocated to the John C Stennis aircraft carrier group, which presently left the Gulf to help US armed operations in Afghanistan.

According to a New York Times reporter who boarded the seized Al Molai with the US forces, the Iranian fishermen articulated largest appreciation for their liberation, with one saying: "It is as you were forwarded by the God."

But Iran's Fars news agency articulated doubts about the operation, saying it was "like a Hollywood movie” which "looks like to have been pre-planned.

Earlier in the week, the US denied an Iranian warning to keep its forces out of Gulf waters after Western powers revealed new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.