TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's official Arabic-language TV channel said Friday it would broadcast footage of a confession by one of the 15 detained British sailors.

Faye Turney, 26, left, the only woman amongst the British navy personnel seized by Iran, and an unidentified sailor eat a meal, in this image made from television, in footage broadcast by Al-Alam, an Arabic-language, Iranian state-run television station, in Tehran, Wednesday March 28, 2007. [AP]

The move seemed to be an Iranian bid to step up the propaganda battle over where the sailors were when they were detained by the Iranian navy near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway on Friday last week.

In a message flashed as "Urgent" on its screen, the Al-Alam channel said it would air the taped confession later Friday but did not say what it would contain. Nor did it identify the sailor involved.

Iran has demanded that Britain acknowledge that its sailors had violated Iranian waters, with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki saying Thursday that such an admission would help to secure the release of the 15 sailors and marines.

Britain insists the sailors were seized in Iraqi waters, where they were searching merchant ships under a UN mandate, and said no admission of error would be made.

At Britain's instance, the UN Security Council on Thursday expressed "grave concern" over Iran's seizure of the military personnel and called for an early resolution of the escalating dispute.

The Turkish prime minister's office said Friday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had indicated his government is willing to reconsider the release of the only female among the British captives.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Ahmadinejad on Thursday evening, said Erdogan's spokesman, Akif Beki. Ahmadinejad told the prime minister that Iran was "willing to reconsider the issue of the release of the woman crew member," Beki said.