UK says warship foiled Iran bid to block tanker
The British navy intervened to stop Iran from blocking a BP oil tanker, the U.K. government said, in the latest evidence that merchant shipping is becoming increasingly embroiled in the wider confrontation with the Islamic Republic.
The BP-operated British Heritage, which can carry as much as 1 million barrels of oil, was attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping chokepoint at the mouth of the world’s largest oil-producing region, when “three Iranian vessels attempted to impede it,” according to a U.K. government statement.
The HMS Montrose “was forced to position herself between the Iranian vessels and British Heritage and issue verbal warnings to the Iranian vessels, which then turned away,” the statement said. The frigate was escorting the tanker, which had remained inside the Persian Gulf to avoid being targeted in response to last week’s seizure by British special forces of a tanker hauling Iranian crude in the Mediterranean Sea.
Iran denied any such intervention took place.
The flare-up is the latest involving merchant ships trading to and from the Middle East, a region that handles about a third of all seaborne petroleum. Six tankers were attacked just outside the Persian Gulf between mid-May and mid-June and the U.S. blamed Iran, an allegation Tehran denied.
Authorities in Gibraltar, assisted by British Royal Marines, seized the supertanker Grace 1 last week, claiming the ship was taking oil to Syria in breach of European Union sanctions. Iran denied the vessel was heading to Syria and vowed to retaliate. On Thursday, Gibraltar police announced they had arrested the master and chief officer of the Grace 1, following a search of the vessel.
The escalating tensions come as European nations scramble to salvage a landmark accord with the Islamic Republic intended to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
“We are concerned by this action and continue to urge the Iranian authorities to de-escalate the situation in the region,” Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman, James Slack, told reporters in London.
The U.K. repeated its insistence that the seizure of the Grace 1 in Gibraltar was about Syria, not Iran. “We’ve been very clear that Grace 1 is a Syrian sanctions rather than an Iran issue,” Slack said.