“Tanker crisis” continues to overshadow Tehran-London relations

Tabnak – Despite various direct and indirect diplomatic messaging, the recent “tanker crisis” continues to overshadow Iran-UK relations. While a new interview has shed more light on the seizure of an Iranian tanker in the strait of Gibraltar, Iranian ambassador to London rejects the idea of tanker-for-tanker exchanges.

The captain of an Iranian-operated supertanker that has been seized by the UK says British marines used excessive force while detaining the vessel in the Strait of Gibraltar off Spain.

Speaking anonymously to the BBC on Tuesday, the captain, an Indian national, said he received a radio call for police to board his ship and that he lowered the ladder at the time of the incident on July 4.

But instead of police boarding, he said, a military helicopter landed on the ship in “a very dangerous move,” and about 30 marines disembarked. He said the marines then acted aggressively even though the crew was unarmed. “How do you come on a ship like this with armed forces and such brute force? For what reason?” he said.

He said he identified himself as the captain, but the marines ignored him and instead had his unarmed crew kneel at gunpoint, shouting “Look forward, look forward!”

“They didn’t care whether I was master… there was no regulations… we had 28 unarmed crew. I was in a state of shock, everybody was in a state of shock,” the captain said. The marines could have boarded the ship and simply told him he had been arrested, he said.

This is while Gibraltar police had earlier claimed that “minimum force” was used to detain the vessel.

The British naval forces seized the supertanker Grace 1 on the allegation that it was carrying Iranian oil to Syria in violation of the European Union (EU)’s unilateral sanctions on the Arab country.

Iran has denied that the vessel was heading for Syria, and Spain later said that London had ordered the confiscation at the request of the United States, which has been trying to hamper Iran’s international oil sales.

Meanwhile, Iran’s ambassador to London rules out a suggestion made by some British media outlets for an exchange between the countries featuring an Iranian-operated supertanker and a British-flagged vessel.

“Impossible to advance a quid pro quo or barter exchange of detained UK and Iranian ships as some British media suggest,” Hamid Baedinejad tweeted on Monday.

“UK has illegally detained the ship carrying Iranian oil while the British ship is detained for violating some key safety/security regulations in Hormuz Strait,” he added.

The UK outlets had made the suggestion for the exchange, misinterpreting remarks made earlier by the head of Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, Kamal Kharrazi.

Kharrazi had said, “We hope that the Britons would release the Iranian tanker, and also that taking place of due process in Iran would lead to release of the British tanker too.”