Former guard commander says Iran should seize British oil tanker
TEHRAN — A former leader of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard said Friday that the Islamic Republic should consider seizing a British oil tanker in response to authorities detaining an Iranian oil tanker off the coast of Gibraltar.
The comments by Mohsen Rezaei came amid heightened tensions over Iran’s unraveling 2015 nuclear deal with Western powers, which the U.S. withdrew from last year.
“If England does not release the Iranian oil tanker, the duty … (of Iran) is to respond and seize one English oil tanker,” he said in a tweet.
In recent days, Iran has broken through the limit the nuclear deal put on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium and plans on Sunday to boost its enrichment. In the past months, the U.S. has rushed thousands of additional troops, an aircraft carrier, B-52 bombers and advanced fighter jets to the region.
Rezaei led the elite guard during Iran’s 1980s “Tanker War” in the Persian Gulf targeting the oil trade of the U.S. and its Arab allies.
It was a striking comment from Rezaei, one that current officials have yet to make.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman earlier called on Britain to release the tanker.
Authorities in Gibraltar intercepted the supertanker on Thursday, saying they believed it to be breaching European Union sanctions by carrying a shipment of Iranian crude oil to Syria. Spanish authorities said the seizure came at the request of the U.S.
A spokesman for the government of Gibraltar, who wasn’t authorized to be identified by name in media reports, said that all 28 crew members remain on the vessel while being interviewed as witnesses and not questioned under criminal procedures.
The crew is comprised of mainly Indian, Pakistani and Ukrainian nationals, he said.
On Friday, the Gibraltar Chronicle quoted...