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 In the end it came down to a series of telephone calls between
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart,
Mohammad Javad Zarif, who had forged a close bond during months of
tense negotiations on Iran's nuclear program.
As the Iranian and U.S. governments scrambled for details of the
incident, the two men spoke at least five times by phone, U.S. and
Iranian officials said. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, ordered an immediate investigation to determine whether
the U.S. sailors had deliberately sailed into Iranian waters, and
ultimately had the final say in their release, Iranian officials
said.
High-level gatherings in Washington were mirrored in Tehran, where
top security and government officials held at least three meetings.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani attended the sessions, one Iranian
official told Reuters.
"Of course, there were tense moments and ... various views over
handling the case," a second Iranian official said.
The drama in the Gulf, which the U.S. government had initially hoped
to keep under wraps, became public knowledge just hours before
President Barack Obama was due to give his annual State of the Union
address in Congress.
 Kerry learned of the detention of the sailors in their two small
craft at 12:30 p.m. EST (1730 GMT), as he and Defense Secretary Ash
Carter met with their Filipino counterparts on the State
Department's eighth floor.
Kerry almost immediately excused himself and went to his seventh
floor office. As it happened, he already had a call scheduled with
Zarif at about 12.45 EST.
Appealing for the sailors' quick release, Kerry told Zarif: "We can
make this into what will be a good story for both of us," according
to a senior State Department official. He repeated that message in
follow-up calls, the official said.
Looming large was the nuclear deal, which both men have invested so
much in and striven to protect. In Washington, the deal has come
under sustained attack from majority Republicans in Congress who
have accused Obama of weakness and say the Iranians are not to be
trusted.
In Tehran, the stakes were no less high. Formal implementation of
the nuclear deal is expected to begin within days, giving Iran
billions of dollars in relief from economic sanctions in return for
curbs on its nuclear activities.
"There were some concerns, including political and military
consequences of the issue, and the government officials were also
worried about its affect on the nuclear deal and its
implementation," one of the Iranian officials said.
Supreme Leader Khamenei "underlined the importance of showing
Islamic clemency and good behavior to the detained soldiers,
especially to the female sailor," the second official said.
"After making sure there were no evil intentions from the sailors'
side, Leader Khamenei gave the green light for the release of
sailors," the official said.
In an Iranian television interview, one of the sailors apologized
and said the boats had mistakenly entered Iranian waters. The
sailors were released from Farsi Island on Wednesday. U.S. officials
said they were unharmed, and that they had made no
government-to-government apology to Tehran.
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JOHN AND JAVAD
It fell though to Kerry and Zarif to do the diplomatic heavy
lifting.
Over months of negotiations and close contact, Kerry has developed a
close working relationship with Zarif, a fluent English speaker who
earned his doctorate at the University of Denver. They address each
other by first names, John and Javad.
Kerry has credited Zarif with helping bridge the deep mistrust
between the U.S. and Iranian governments after decades of
estrangement and has remained in contact by phone with him in the
months since the nuclear deal was negotiated.
"One thing that I can say with confidence is that this channel
between Secretary Kerry and ... their foreign minister was very
important in resolving this in a timely fashion," White House chief
of staff Denis McDonough told reporters.
In an account that aligns with that from Iranian officials, the
senior State Department official said Kerry spoke with Zarif by
phone at 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3:15 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Washington time.
The two had other, very brief phone chats as well, he said.
Kerry, a former Navy officer, pressed Zarif on the need for Iran to
release the Iranians "safely and unharmed and as quickly as
possible," the senior State Department official said.
"At the front of mind for everybody, including I would suspect on
the Iranian side, was the concern ... that there would be risk of
escalation and the spillover of this issue into other issues,
including no doubt the nuclear situation," the official said.
The nuclear deal and U.S.-Iran ties, such as they are, already had
been rattled by other incidents in recent months.
In October and November, Iran launched ballistic missiles in
violation of U.N. sanctions. After the latter test, the White House
considered imposing fresh sanctions but decided to hold off.
One U.S. administration official said the move was made out of a
desire "not to rock the boat" during a sensitive time as
implementation of the nuclear deal approached.
Then, in late December, the United States said that Iranian vessels
fired rockets close to the U.S. aircraft carrier Harry S Truman in
the Gulf.
The breakthrough call between Zarif and Kerry came around 3:15 pm.
"At that point," the senior State Department official said, "Foreign
Minister Zarif said to the secretary that he had indications from
the people who were holding our sailors that they would be free to
go at dawn, that it was probably not safe for them to transit during
the course of the night in dark."
(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed, Jeff Mason, Doina Chiacu,
Jonathan Landay and Andrea Shalal, Editing by Ross Colvin)
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