Iranian captain wants to leave post

GIBRALTAR — The captain of an Iranian supertanker at the center of a diplomatic standoff no longer wants to keep command of the ship, which is in need of repairs that could impede its immediate departure from Gibraltar, the sailor’s lawyer said Friday.

Any delay of the Grace 1’s departure could provide a window of opportunity for the U.S. to mount further legal action and try to again stop the tanker amid a growing confrontation with Tehran.

U.S. authorities announced in Washington late Friday afternoon that they had obtained a warrant to seize the tanker, although Gibraltar court officials said they had not received any claim by the end of the business day in the British overseas territory. It wasn’t immediately clear if the U.S. had forwarded the warrant.

The tanker — and its 2.1 million tons of Iranian light crude oil — seemed to perform mild maneuvers on Friday but largely remained still, shrouded in heavy fog in water off the British overseas territory a day after authorities ended its detention for allegedly breaching European Union sanctions on Syria.

The release Thursday came over the objections of the United States. The head of the Gibraltar government said Iran had promised him not to deliver the fuel to a sanctioned refinery in Syrian territory, although an Iranian official later disputed that those assurances had been delivered.

Tension between Iran and the U.S. has escalated since President Donald Trump last year unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal signed by Iran and other world powers.