Britain warns of ‘serious consequences’ if Iran does not release British tanker - The Washington Post

DUBAI — Britain warned of “serious consequences” if Iran fails to release a British tanker that was forcibly seized by Iranian naval forces in the Strait of Hormuz, but Iranian leaders signaled that the vessel was seized as payback amid widening disputes with the West over sanctions.

The spokesman of Iran’s Guardian Council, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, was quoted as saying Friday’s interdiction of the Stena Impero tanker was “reciprocal action” in response to Britain holding an Iranian vessel in the Mediterranean.

Kadkhodaei’s remarks, reported by Iran’s Fars news agency, also denounced the “illegitimate economic war” on Iran, an apparent reference to international sanctions.

The Guardian Council, a powerful group that oversees internal matters such as elections, rarely comments on international affairs. But its declarations about the tanker seizure possibly reflect the views of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a willingness by Iran’s rulers to step up the brinkmanship.

Earlier, Iran said the Stena Impero tanker, with 23 crew members aboard, had been detained on the grounds that it failed to stop after colliding with a fishing vessel.

Britain said it was not considering a military solution to the tanker’s seizure, noting a possible response that would be “considered but robust.” The government urged all British shipping to stay away from the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of Persian Gulf — the route for a fifth of the world’s oil.

“We are not looking at military options. We are looking at a diplomatic way to resolve this situation,” said British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. However, he added, “there will be serious consequences if we are not able to resolve it quickly.”

[Iran seizes British tanker in Strait of Hormuz; denies Trump’s claim that drone was brought down ]

The seizure of the Stena Impero, a British flagged ship, is the most serious of recent incidents involving harassment and attacks on shipping in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf. It suggests Iran is prepared to go to new lengths in its quest to resist harsh new sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.

In this instance, the ship was apparently seized in fulfillment of Iranian threats to retaliate for the detention earlier this month by Britain’s navy of an Iranian supertanker near Gibraltar on the grounds that it was violating European Union sanctions on Syria.

On Friday, the Gibraltar Supreme Court granted local authorities the right to continue to detain the Iranian tanker, the Grace 1, for another 30 days as investigations continue into the destination of the oil it was carrying.

[Iran accuses Britain of ‘piracy’ for seizing oil tanker, warns of retaliation]

Hours later, the Stena Impero was surrounded by four speedboats and a helicopter before it was forced to change course and head toward Iranian waters, according to British officials and the ship’s operators. None of the 23 crew members are British, said Hunt. The ship’s operator said they are mostly Indian, Russian, Latvian and Filipino.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, called the interception of the Iranian tanker off Gibraltar “piracy.”

“Our action in the Persian Gulf is to uphold int’l rules,” he wrote in a tweet Saturday, calling on Britain to “cease being an accessory” to U.S. sanctions against Iran.

A second ship, the Mesdar, was also intercepted by speedboats at around the same time but allowed to continue on its journey, according to reports in Iran’s state-run media.

The Stena Impero is being held at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, according to Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency. Fars quoted port officials as saying the tanker had damaged a fishing boat then refused to respond to appeals from the boat to stop and offer assistance, in violation of maritime laws.

The Tasnim news agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, made no mention of an accident. It reported that the ship was detained because it had switched off its GPS systems, was sailing on the wrong side of the waterway and was polluting the seas by dumping oil.

“Yesterday’s action in the Gulf shows worrying signs Iran may be choosing a dangerous path of illegal and destabilizing behavior after Gibraltar’s LEGAL detention of oil bound for Syria,” Hunt said on Twitter.

[Faced with relentless American pressure, Iran starts to hit back]

In Washington, President Trump said Friday the interception of the British ship proved his repeated assertions that Iran is “nothing but trouble.”

“It goes to show you I was right,” he said, adding: “It’s not American, it’s U.K. . . . Let’s see what happens.”

Hunt spoke on the phone with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday night, and British and U.S. officials were in touch throughout the night, according to U.S. and British officials. The British government asked Pompeo to hold back from public comments that might further inflame the situation, while London tried to resolve the crisis through diplomacy, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The interceptions signal a wider escalation by Iran in its two-month-old campaign of threats and attacks against U.S. and allied warships and commercial shipping in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf, as Tehran seeks to push back against the Trump administration’s imposition of tough new sanctions. Iran has denied U.S. allegations that it is responsible for most of the attacks.

The new tensions coincide with the arrival in the region of U.S. naval reinforcements aimed at securing the safety of shipping in the area. Among the U.S. warships that have arrived in the region is the USS Boxer, which on Thursday destroyed an Iranian drone that had approached dangerously close, according to Trump and the Pentagon.

Iran however rebutted that the drone had been brought down and on Friday broadcast footage of a warship that it claimed was the Boxer to demonstrate that the drone was still functional.

A different U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation said the U.S. military has surveillance aircraft in the region watching what is happening. Naval Forces Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the region, has been in contact with commercial U.S. ships in the region.

Booth reported from London. Karla Adams in London, Karen DeYoung in Buenos Aires and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.

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