Iran is to soon release an eight-member British Royal Navy unit arrested for straying into its territorial waters along the border with Iraq, the official IRNA news agency has reported. Late on Tuesday top Iranian officials indicated that the team of Royal Marines and sailors could be freed if it is established they did not enter Iranian waters deliberately. Iranian television has broadcast footage of two of the arrested sailors apologising for entering Iranian territorial waters. "The team wrongly entered Iranian waters and we apologise for this mistake because it was a big mistake," one of the sailors, identified as Sergeant Thomas Hawkins, said in comments dubbed into Arabic and shown on Iran's Al-Alam television on Tuesday. Hawkins, dressed in military fatigues, said his team of eight sailors had been one mile inside Iranian territorial waters when they were arrested by Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Another sailor, chief petty officer Robert Webster, said the team had wrongly entered Iranian waters on a mission accompanying a vessel from Umm Qasr to Basra. **Diplomatic rift*** The arrest of the sailors threatened to cause a serious diplomatic rift between Iran and Britain. But an Iranian military official said they could soon be released if investigations show their incursion was not ill-intended. The Royal Navy personnel appeared in blindfolds on Iranian television on Tuesday and the British government summoned Iran's ambassador to London and called for their release. Some Iranian media reports said the Britons were carrying sophisticated maps and arms and would be prosecuted, but Ali Reza Afshar, deputy head of the armed forces chief of staff, said they could be freed shortly. **PHOTO CAPTION*** The team apologised on air for what they termed a big mistake. (Al-Jazeera)