in the Gulf as a "hostile act” and rejected Tehran’s explanation that it seized the vessel because it had been involved in an accident.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards posted a video online showing speedboats
pulling alongside the Stena Impero tanker, its name clearly visible.
Troops wearing ski masks and carrying machine guns rappelled to its deck
from a helicopter, the same tactics used by British Royal Marines to
seize an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar two weeks ago.
Friday’s action in the global oil trade’s most important waterway has
been viewed in the West as a major escalation after three months of
confrontation that has already taken Iran and the United States to the
brink of war.
It follows threats from Tehran to retaliate for Britain’s July 4
seizure of the Iranian tanker Grace 1, accused of violating sanctions on
Syria.
British Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt called the incident a
"hostile act”. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he had expressed
"extreme disappointment” by phone to his Iranian counterpart,
Mohammad Javad Zarif. Britain also summoned the Iranian
charge d’affaires in London.
A spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,
Brigadier-General Ramezan Sharif, said Tehran had seized the ship in the
Strait of Hormuz despite the "resistance and interference” of a British
warship which had been escorting it. No British warship was visible in
the video posted by the Guards.
Iran’s Fars news agency said the Guards had taken control of the
Stena Impero on Friday after it collided with an Iranian fishing boat
whose distress call it ignored.
The vessel, carrying no cargo, was taken to the Iranian port of
Bandar Abbas. It will remain there with its 23 crew - 18 of them Indians
- while the accident is investigated, Iranian news agencies quoted the
head of Ports and
Maritime Organization in southern Hormozgan province, Allahmorad Afifipour,
as saying.
In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, Britain said the tanker was
approached by Iranian forces when it was in Omani territorial waters
exercising its lawful right of passage, and the action "constitutes
illegal interference.”
"Current tensions are extremely concerning, and our priority is to de-escalate. We do not seek confrontation with Iran,” the letter said. "But it is unacceptable and highly escalatory to threaten shipping going about its legitimate business through internationally recognized transit corridors.”
Oil prices up
Zarif told Hunt that the ship must go through a legal process before it can be released, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported.
The strait, between Iran and the Arabian peninsula, is the sole
outlet for exports of most Middle Eastern oil, and the seizure sent oil
prices sharply higher. The United States, which tightened sanctions
against Iran in May with the aim of halting its oil exports altogether,
has been warning for months of an Iranian threat to shipping in the
strait.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he also discussed the situation with Hunt, his British counterpart.
"We talked about what they’ve seen, what they know, and how they’re
beginning to think about how they will respond,” Pompeo said in an
interview with the Washington Examiner that was published on Saturday by
the State Department. "Iran is in a place today that they have taken
themselves.”
Another oil tanker, the Mesdar, was also boarded by Iranian personnel
on Friday and temporarily forced to divert toward Iran, but later was
allowed to continue on its route through the strait. On Saturday
Algeria’s APS news agency said the Mesdar was owned by Algeria’s state
oil company Sonatrach.
France, Germany and the European Union joined Britain in condemning the seizure.
The three big European countries are signatories to a 2015 nuclear
deal between Tehran and world powers that Washington undermined by
quitting last year, setting Iran’s already fragile relations with the
West on a downward spiral.
Under the pact, Iran agreed to restrict nuclear work in return for lifting sanctions. The European countries opposed the Trump administration’s decision to abandon the agreement last year, but have so far failed to fulfill promises to Iran of providing alternative means for it to access world trade.
Extreme disappointment
"Just spoke to ... Zarif and expressed extreme disappointment that
having assured me last Saturday Iran wanted to de-escalate situation,
they have behaved in the opposite way,” Hunt wrote on Twitter. "This has
to be about actions not words if we are to find a way through.”
Earlier he said London’s reaction would be "considered but robust” and it would ensure the safety of its shipping.
On Friday, Hunt said the solution would be found via diplomacy and
London was "not looking at military options.” Britain’s government said
it had advised British shipping to stay out of the Hormuz area for an
interim period.
During the past three months of escalation, the United States and
Iran come as close as ever to direct armed conflict. In June, Tehran
shot down a U.S. drone and President Donald Trump ordered retaliatory
air strikes, only to call them off just minutes before were to have been
carried out.
The vessel had been heading to a port in Saudi Arabia and suddenly changed course after passing through the strait.
The United States has blamed Iran for a series of attacks on shipping
around the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has rejected the allegations.
Washington also said it had this week downed an Iranian drone near where
the Stena Impero was seized.
The United States is sending military personnel and resources to
Saudi Arabia for the first time since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in
2003.
VOA