UK: Iran ship seizure a ‘hostile act’
Revolutionary Guard transfers vessel to port with 23 crew on board • US, Britain hold back from threatening military action
GENEVA, LONDON, WASHINGTON (Reuters/Los Angeles Times) – Iran’s detention of two British-owned oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz sharply escalated tensions with London and Washington over the weekend, increasing odds that the two allies would undertake new military steps to protect shipping in the strategically important Middle East waterway.
Naval forces from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps seized the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero, claiming it failed to follow international maritime regulations while transiting the strait, according to Iran state media. The tanker has 23 crew members on board.
The tanker “was seized by the IRGC due to violating international regulations,” the Revolutionary Guard said in a statement. “After it was seized it was transferred to Iranian shores to undergo legal procedure.”
Britain denounced the seizure as a “hostile act” on Saturday, rejecting Tehran’s explanation that it had seized the vessel because it had been involved in an accident.
Another tanker was boarded by armed Iranian naval forces on Friday, but later allowed to proceed, according to Iranian news service FARS. The Liberian-flagged ship, Mesdar, is operated by the UK-based Norbulk Shipping company.
The Iranian moves caused oil futures to spike and sharply raised fears in jittery markets that escalating tit-for-tat actions by Tehran, Washington and London could threaten the flow of oil through the strait, possibly leading to military confrontation despite all sides appearing to trying to avoid one.
Officials in Washington and London held back from threatening military action to free the tanker, and several senior officials said the US would likely take its cue from Britain in deciding how to respond.
The US army said on Friday that it is using an unarmed surveillance aircraft to view the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, and is in touch with US vessels in the area to ensure their safety.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would talk with the UK after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized the British-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf. Trump made the comments to reporters outside the White House.
Trump said he had also told Republican Senator Rand Paul that he could get involved with Iran talks. Paul had made a proposal to talk to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad
Javad Zarif, according to US media, but Trump said on Thursday that he had not appointed him to such a position.
Trump also told White House reporters that the US has warships and other military forces in the region; however, he seemed to play down possibilities of a military response, noting that the action was aimed at UK, not US, vessels.
“We don’t have very many tankers going in, but we have a lot of ships there that are warships,” he said. “And we’ll talk to the UK And we have no written agreement, but we have an agreement. They’ve been a very great ally of ours.”
The US has beefed up its military forces in the region in recent months, sending as many as 8,000 additional troops, along with warships and planes and other missile defense systems. For decades, the US has vowed it would respond with military force if Iran attempted to close the strait, which serves as a crucial passageway for much of the oil from gulf states.
At a minimum, the US is likely to use the incidents in pressing allies to send more naval vessels to the region to protect tankers transiting the strait. US officials have had little success recently in putting together an international coalition to do that, in large part because of strain between Washington and its allies over Trump’s decision to pull out of the 2015 agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program.
At the Pentagon, a senior official said it was “too early to tell” whether Trump would order a US military response, noting that it was likely to depend on how long Tehran held the British vessel and a decision by British officials about how they want to respond.
A spokesman for US Central Command said the US has “patrol aircraft operating in international airspace monitoring the situation within the Strait of Hormuz.”
“US Naval Forces Central Command has been in contact with US ships operating in the area to ensure their safety,” added the spokesman, Lt.Col. Earl Brown.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards posted a video online showing speedboats pulling up 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 follows weeks of threats from Tehran to retaliate for Britain’s 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, Javad Zarif. Britain also summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires in London.
“Just spoke to... [Javad] Zarif and expressed extreme disappointment that having assured me last Saturday Iran wanted to de-escalate situation, they have behaved in the opposite way,” tweeted British Hunt. “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.
A spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Brig.-Gen. 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 would remain there with its 23-member crew – 18 of them Indians – while the accident was investigated, Iranian news agencies quoted the head of Ports and Maritime Organization in southern Hormozgan province, Allahmorad Afifipour, as saying.
Zarif told Britain’s Hunt that the ship must go through a legal process before it could 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.
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.
The past three months of escalation have seen the United States and Iran come as close as ever to direct armed conflict. In June, Tehran shot down a US drone and Trump ordered retaliatory airstrikes, only to call them off just minutes before impact.
In Israel, Blue and White Party chairman Benny Gantz said Iran and its proxies are testing the world’s patience.
“Whoever ignores today’s threats may soon face a far graver, more destructive reality,” he said. “As for Nasrallah and his threats, he knows all too well that any threat to Israel will be met with a very severe response. I’d like to remind him what happened when he attempted to threaten us over a decade ago. Nasrallah should know that this time around he won’t make it back to the bunker.”
MK Yair Lapid, Blue and White’s number two candidate, said the seizure of the British tanker proves that Europe should have joined Trump in canceling the Iranian nuclear deal and increasing the sanctions on the Iranian regime.
“The world must present Iran with a clear choice: end your nuclear program and your support for terror worldwide or we will dismantle your economy,” Lapid wrote on Twitter.
Gil Hoffman contributed to this report. •