Gibraltar to release oil tanker at centre of Iran row pending challenge
An oil tanker at the centre of a sixweek diplomatic row between Britain and Iran is to be released from Gibraltar after Tehran promised that its cargo worth $140m would no longer be transported to Syria.
The territory’s chief minister, Fabian Picardo, said he had agreed to let the vessel go after he had received a written assurance from Iran, but admitted his decision could yet be overturned by a surprise last minute US legal challenge.
Iran had promised that the final destination of the tanker Grace 1 “would not be an entity that is subject to European Union sanctions” such as Syria, Picardo said in a statement. That meant there were “no longer any reasonable grounds for the continued legal detention”, he added.
Royal Marines seized the vessel off the shores of Gibraltar on 4 July. A court in the territory endorsed his decision to release the vessel, which is carrying 2.1m barrels of Iranian oil worth £116m.
Tensions flared after the incident, with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seizing the British-flagged Stena Impero a fortnight later, and Britain sending out a second warship to the Gulf to offer greater protection to merchant shipping.
Picardo acknowledged that the US Department of Justice had indicated it was minded to challenge the decision and said mutual legal assistance authorities would make “an objective, legal determination of that request”.
Trump administration officials had earlier told the Guardian the seizure request was consistent with wider efforts to intensify the effects of western economic sanctions on Iran as well as Syria.
A US official said the tanker case was significant because it was both an Iranian oil export and, in the judgment of the UK government, a Syrian oil import. “We have an interest in the disruption of both of those, both for our overarching Iran policy and our Syria policy,” the official said.
Gibraltar detained the Grace 1 because it was believed to be heading to Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s government has been subject to EU sanctions since the early stages of the country’s civil war. The EU does not sanction Iranian oil exports.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, accused the US of “having failed to accomplish its objectives through its economic terrorism”. It had “attempted to abuse the legal system to steal our property on the high seas”, he said.
British officials said they were notified in advance by the US of the Department of Justice’s intention to challenge the release of the tanker, but they would not spell out when that had occurred.
It is not clear whether the US national security adviser, John Bolton, raised the subject when he visited London on Monday and Tuesday and met the prime minister, Boris Johnson, and other cabinet ministers.
Bolton had previously been following the topic closely. The senior official had hailed the seizure of the Grace 1 as “excellent news” when it originally took place, and praised the UK for agreeing to work with the US to help safeguard merchant shipping in the Gulf earlier this month.
The Foreign Office said it noted the assurances given by Iran that the Grace 1 would not proceed to Syria. “Iran must abide by the assurances they have provided. We will not stand by and allow Iran, or anyone, to bypass vital EU sanctions on a regime that has deployed chemical weapons against its own people,” a spokesperson said.
Relations between Iran and the west have been deteriorating since Washington pulled out of an international agreement curbing Tehran’s nuclear programme and reimposed economic sanctions.
The UK, France and Germany have been trying to keep the deal alive, but under the pressure of economic sanctions, Iran has been gradually pursuing a policy of defiance, sabotaging shipping in the Gulf and increasing the enrichment levels of its uranium stockpiles in breach of the treaty.
During his trip to the UK, Bolton made further diplomatic efforts to steer a post-Brexit UK further away from Europe on a range of issues including the Iran nuclear deal and the role of the Chinese technology firm Huawei.
Bolton is hoping that a Johnson administration will gradually adopt a foreign policy on Iran more independent of its two former EU partners Germany and France after Brexit, and closer to the policy of maximum economic pressure on Tehran imposed by Donald Trump.