The detaining of the Greenpeace ship Solo sparked an international incident on Tuesday, when the Dutch government formally asked Russian authorities for explanation. According to Wouter van Rijckrevorsel, consul at the Dutch Embassy in Moscow, the Dutch ambassador had asked for clarification of the status of the Solo's 34 crew members.


They are now being held by Russian coast guards and on their way to the port of Murmansk.


Van Rijckevorsel said that the Russian Foreign Ministry had not yet replied to the ambassador's request. "We have asked to be allowed to speak to the captain and to be told ahead of time about possible arrests", he said.


Under Russian law, the prosecutor's office has 72 hours to decide whether to charge the crew.


The Dutch-registered Solo was seized by the Russian coast guard on Monday after a two-day game of cat and mouse as the Greenpeace team attempted to reach the islands of Novaya Zemlya, which are believed to be at the center of the world's largest nuclear dump at sea. Russian parliamentary deputies who recently returned from Novaya Zemyla defended the coast guard's actions at a press conference Tuesday. They criticized the Greenpeace mission for lacking scientific value.


"On a scientific level, it gives weak results", said Valery Menshikov, deputy head of a parliamentary committee on ecological issues. "It is a normal, sodal propagandistic action by Greenpeace".


After the press conference, a Greenpeace representative in Moscow, Eleanor O'Hanlon, rebuffed Menshikov's allegations. She said the Solo trip had been well prepared and that several members of the crew were experts.


After the Solo trespassed Russian territorial waters by one mile Monday, the Russian coast guard ship Ural fired three shots across its stern, forcing the Solo's captain Albert Kuiken to stop.


O'Hanlon said the organization did not dispute the violation of Russian territory, but that Solo was fired on after it had re-entered international waters.


Mayor Andrei Alyoshin, senior officer of the Russian coast guard press center, said he had no information about whether or not the crew would be tried in court.


"It is up to the local coast-guard unit to decide the future of the vessel and crew", he said by telephone Tuesday. "All I can say is that Russian and international laws have been broken".