Iran and U.K. Talk Over Tanker Crisis
The countries’ top diplomats discussed the matter of the seized Iranian oil tanker on a call
The U.K. and Iran sought to defuse tensions over a detained Iranian oil tanker in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar but failed to resolve an issue that has raised new fears about military conflict over commercial shipping lanes.
The renewed diplomacy included a call between the two countries’ top diplomats, demonstrating how both sides wanted to de-escalate a crisis that flared up after Gibraltar authorities and the Royal Marines seized the Grace 1 on July 4. The U.K. says the Iranian tanker was carrying 2 million barrels of oil to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions prohibiting crude sales to Bashar al-Assad’s government.
In a tweet, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt offered to return the tanker provided that Iran guaranteed its oil wouldn’t go to Syria. Gibraltar on Saturday released the four Indian seamen who manned Iran’s ship.
Mr. Hunt said he had a constructive call with Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Javad Zarif, whom the British diplomat said had pledged to work to calm things down.
“I reassured him our concern was destination not origin of the oil,” Mr. Hunt wrote.
In a tweet posted late Saturday on Iran’s official government account, Mr. Zarif didn’t directly address Mr. Hunt’s demand of assurances that the ship’s oil wouldn’t go to Syria but said it was headed to a legal destination in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Separately, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh told Iranian lawmakers in Tehran that the controversy over the Grace 1 was resolvable and not complicated, according to ISNA, the Iranian news outlet.
Iranian officials have denied that the ship was carrying oil to Syria. Even if it was, Iranian officials say, Iran isn’t subject to any U.K. or European oil embargo placed on Syria.
The fight over the tanker comes amid a standoff between Iran and the U.S., which last year pulled out of a 2015 international agreement curbing Iran’s nuclear program and imposed harsh sanctions to punish Tehran for its threatening posture in the Middle East. The U.S. has built up its military presence in the Persian Gulf this year, citing Iranian threats.
Iran began retaliating in recent weeks, executing its first intentional breach of the nuclear deal’s limits on its atomic fuel and shooting down an American surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. has also accused Iran of attacking tankers in the Gulf of Oman and coordinating with allied militias to blow up oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia—accusations that Iran denies.
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