Iran reacted angrily to President Bush’s assertion yesterday that the detained British naval personnel were “hostages”.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Tehran said that President Bush’s personal intervention in the stand-off could only exacerbate the crisis.

“Any kind of comment by the Americans in support of the British Government will make the situation worse,” said Mohammed Ali Hoseyni. “Hence, it would be best for the American president to refrain from making ill-judged, nontechnical and nonrational remarks.”

Fearing that American involvement could escalate the crisis, President Bush made no public comment for nine days. But he broke his silence at the weekend to denounce Iran’s “inexcusable behaviour” and describe the detained British sailors and Marines as “hostages”.

The US president’s apparently unscripted intervention came at a press conference with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian President, at Camp David on Saturday.

Asked a question about the “Iranian hostage crisis”, Mr Bush began by addressing the “Iranian issue” before correcting himself to say: “The British hostages issue is a serious issue because the Iranians took these people out of Iraqi water. And it’s inexcusable behaviour.

“The Iranians must give back the hostages. They’re innocent, they were doing nothing, and they were summarily plucked out of the water.”

Mr Bush refused to say whether Britain would be within its rights to consider a military option or whether Washington would have considered the detention of US sailors to be an “act of war”. He also ruled out any possible exchange for five Iranians seized by US troops in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil.

“I strongly support the Blair Government’s attempts to resolve this peacefully. And I support the Prime Minister when he made it clear there were no quid pro quos,” he said.

Mr Bush repeated his concern about Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons programme. “We will continue to work with the international community to say that it is in the world’s interest that Iran not develop a weapon,” he said.

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