Tony Blair said on Tuesday the way was open for diplomatic efforts to secure the release of 15 marines and sailors arrested and detained by Iran, and the next 48 hours would be critical.

”The most important thing is to get the people back safe and sound and if they want to resolve this in a diplomatic way the door is open,” Blair told Real Radio in Scotland. ”The next 48 hours will be fairly critical.”

The prime minister’s comments came the day after Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, said Tehran wanted a speedy diplomatic solution to its dispute with Britain and had no wish to put the 15 British naval personnel it has captured on trial.

After a day in which the two sides appeared to make more progress than at any time since the dispute began 11 days before, the UK said it shared Mr Larijani’s desire to begin talks soon.

“Our shared interest is to solve this problem as soon as possible...There is no interest or benefit in keeping British soldiers in Iran,” Mr Larijani told Britain’s Channel Four News on Monday night. “There is a difference of view between the UK government and the Iranian government and this issue should be resolved bilaterally...Our priority would definitely not be a trial, unless the UK insists on not solving this problem through diplomatic channels.

Some British diplomats have welcomed Mr Larijani’s involvement as a sign that Iran’s political elite is seeking to resolve the dispute. But they also expressed doubts over whether Iran’s fractured government had agreed to a common negotiating line.

“There remain some differences between us but we can confirm we share his preference for early bilateral discussions to find a diplomatic solution to this problem,” the British Foreign Office said on Monday night. It added that it would make contact with the Iranian authorities on Tuesday.

Mr Larijani said that London should send a delegation to clarify whether the 15 British sailors and marines had entered Iranian waters but that the Iranian government believed “100 per cent” that they had done so.

“After that there is a diplomatic channel...that could help to solve the problem,” he added, specifying that he would accept negotiations with either British ministers or the UK ambassador in Tehran.

“A number of soldiers have made a mistake, have violated the other country’s territorial waters,” he said. “They should be brave enough to admit the mistake, confess to it, and leave.” Iranian television has already screened a number of “confessions” by the British personnel, which UK officials suspect were obtained by coercion. Tehran says all 15 have now confessed.

The UK says its personnel remained within Iraqi territory but the matter is complicated further because there is no agreed maritime border between Iran and Iraq.

“A guarantee must be given that such violations will not be repeated,” said Mr Larijani, indicating possible terrain for compromise between London and Tehran.

While steering clear of an apology, Margaret Beckett, British foreign secretary, has expressed “regret” over the incident in which Iran captured the 15 British sailors. In a reply to an Iranian letter sent late last week, Ms Beckett also suggested that Iran and the UK seek to prevent such disputes from recurring.

On Monday, Iranian media welcomed what it said was the more “positive” approach from Britain, although Mr Larijani accused London of having “behaved irrationally” in its initial approach to the dispute.

“It seems that Britain has shifted a little bit from its stance,” Iranian state television said on Monday as it screened the latest footage of the UK prisoners on Monday. “If this path continues, one can hope that the issue would be resolved in a bilateral process and far away from fuss and clamour and with achieving Iran’s logical demands.”

Iran’s student news agency ISNA said because of Britain’s alleged change of stance, Tehran would not broadcast “details” of the video of the detainees. Unlike earlier clips, which included the prisoners’ “confessions,” the latest videos were screened without sound.

The UK has already been considering the possibility of sending a team of diplomats and naval staff to begin talks with Iran. One avenue would be to set up a “parallel process” in which the two sides would simultaneously discuss the status of the detainees and a mechanism for dealing with potential future disputes over naval operations in the northern Gulf.

“I would not find fault with the British response. They have played it by the book,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. But he added: “Iran did not respond positively when Britain went public. I think it is more likely that Tehran will respond to pleas from other Islamic countries.”

Humane Society in Washington State Holds Yoga Class for Dogs and Their Owners

BELLEVUE, Wash. Apr 3, 2007 (AP)— By the end of their doggie yoga class, most of the wandering and sniffing participants are passed out on their mats, in a position their instructor calls the "upward facing belly pose."

Beans, a majestic 2-year-old Vizsla, however, is ready to play. The overgrown puppy has tried to relax with his owner, Chantale Anderson, but once Magnet the black lab heads off to explore the room, Beans is ready to go.

Mostly, however, both the dogs and the humans on a recent evening at the Seattle/King County Humane Society seemed relaxed and focused for about 40 minutes of "doggie yoga."

Leilani the toy poodle is the star of the class, perhaps because the tiny 11-year-old is too timid to venture off the mat to play with the big dogs.

Her owner, Suanne Nagata, said afterward that Leilani just loves being touched. "I could just feel her relax," she said.

Brenda Bryan, who teaches human yoga as well as the new class for both dogs and humans at the Humane Society, says the dogs react to the gentle energy in the room.

"As we get into it, the dogs all kind of calm down," said Bryan, who developed the poses for the class by working with her own two dogs Gus, a mixed breed, and Honey, a Shar Pei-Boxer mix and talking to instructors in other cities like New York, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh where yoga for dogs and their owners is starting to catch on.

The question she and the Humane Society get the most from prospective human students is how do the people and dogs interact?

In Bryan's class, the humans do traditional yoga poses yes, including "downward facing dog" while staying in contact physically with their pets.

Part of the class includes gentle stretching and dog massage, another specialty of Bryan's, but most of the time the humans gently use the dogs like yoga props.

In downward facing dog, for example, the humans rest their heads on their companions, who are relaxing napping? on the mat.

The yoga poses are modified both for the humans of different sizes and abilities and for the dogs. During class, Bryan reminds the people not to push their canine partners to perform.

"Don't be too ambitious," she said. "Honor where your dog is and remember that dogs respond to our energy."

The class was designed to offer a new way for humans to spend time with their pets. "This is 80 percent fun," said Eve Holt, director of community relations for the Seattle Humane Society.

Bryan calls it "partner yoga," because the class encourages both the human and the dog to increase their awareness of each other.

"Magnet and I were just in this little bubble," said Emily Keegans afterward. She said her dog really loves getting the one-on-one attention he receives in yoga class and she likes having another opportunity to both exercise and spend time with her dog.

"I love doing yoga and I'm just really busy. Just to spend time with him and be with him is great," added Keegans.

She said she was doing dog massage at a Humane Society fundraiser a dog fashion show when during a conversation with the agency director she mentioned that she is also a yoga instructor. And the idea for doggie yoga was born.

"It was really just a marriage of all the things I love," Bryan said. She said she hopes the class will open up yoga to a variety of people and dogs who have never done this kind of exercise before.

"We've been having a lot of fun with this," said Bryan, adding that her own dogs rush to the mat as soon as she unrolls it at home, whether or not she was planning to involve them.

Both the humans and the canines seemed to enjoy themselves before, during and after a recent doggie class at the Humane Society.

Shadow visited every mat during the class and made a complete circuit of shoe sniffing toward the end. Beans seemed a lot more interested in making new friends than relaxing, as his owner predicted before the class.

"He likes to nap. He is a cuddle bug, but playing is so much more important," Anderson said. Nearly every dog in the group took at least one break to sniff a canine or human or both, but Bryan seemed pleased with how the class was going and was neither outwardly amused nor flustered when Honey and Shadow crowded onto the mat with her and Gus.

Although her voice was yoga calm, her words showed she shared the other humans' amusement.

"Everyone is being so good and the dogs too."