On Friday, a UK-flagged tanker was seized in the Strait of Hormuz by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after it allegedly violated international regulations. The UK condemned the move calling the act ‘unacceptable’. The seizure comes amid UK-Iranian tensions that spiked after Britain seized an Iranian supertanker near Gibraltar.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency has uploaded a video of the detained UK oil tanker Stena Impero. The footage shows the vessel anchored out at open sea.
Earlier, Fars News Agency reported that all 23 crew members on the detained tanker were now at the port of Bandar Abbas and will remain aboard the vessel until the end of the investigation.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arrested a UK-flagged tanker, the Stena Impero, on Friday amid an accident involving the vessel and a fishing boat.
Separately, a Liberian-flagged ship, the Mesdar, was also detained by the IRGS but was later released.
The seizure of the UK vessel was met with indignation by several top political figures, with UK Foreign Secretary Hunt calling the incident ‘unacceptable’.
The incident comes amid the intensified tensions between London and Tehran after Iranian supertanker Grace 1 was detained off the coast of Gibraltar earlier this month.