LONDON -- An audio recording released Sunday shows that a British frigate was too far away from a British-flagged oil tanker to keep it from being seized by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
In the recording released by the maritime security risk firm Dryad Global, a British naval officer insists that the targeted tanker must be allowed to sail through the Strait of Hormuz, even as Iranian paramilitary forces successfully demand that the vessel change course to an Iranian port.
The audio reveals how Britain's Royal Navy was unable to prevent the ship's seizure, which has been condemned by Britain and its European allies as they continue to call for a reduction of tensions in the Persian Gulf region. One-fifth of all global crude exports pass through the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman.
In the recording, an Iranian officer can be heard telling the tanker Stena Impero to change course, saying: "You obey, you will be safe."
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"Alter your course to 360 degrees immediately, over," the Iranian officer says, adding that the ship was wanted for security reasons.
A British naval officer from the HMS Montrose frigate, which was patrolling the area around the Strait of Hormuz, is heard telling the Stena Impero that its passage must be allowed.
"Sir, I reiterate that as you are conducting transit passage in a recognized international strait; under international law your passage must not be impaired, intruded, obstructed or hampered," the unidentified British officer says to the Stena Impero, which had a crew of 23 people on board.
The British officer then tells an Iranian patrol boat: "Please confirm that you are not intending to violate international law by unlawfully attempting to board the Stena."
The Iranians were not deterred. By Sunday, the Iranian flag was seen flying over the bridge of the tanker in the Bandar Abbas port, according to images aired by the state-run Press TV.
British officials say the HMS Montrose was about 60 minutes from the scene when the Iranians took control of the tanker, too far away to intervene effectively.
The Revolutionary Guard, the military of Iran's supreme leader, said Saturday that the British ship entered the strait from the wrong direction and wasn't paying heed to maritime regulations. Officials for the Iranian government, which has its own navy, said the ship was polluting the gulf.
There was disagreement in Iran on whether the ship had caused an accident. The Iranian government said the British-flagged ship had struck an Iranian fishing boat, while the Revolutionary Guard said the boat could potentially have collided with other vessels in the gulf.
However, Iranian officials also have said the seizure of the oil tanker was a justified response to Britain's role in impounding an Iranian supertanker two weeks earlier off the coast of Gibraltar, a British overseas territory on the southern tip of Spain. Britain has said it stopped that tanker on suspicion that it had been violating a European Union embargo on the delivery of oil to Syria.
Iranian state television said the British-flagged ship will be held until judicial assessments are complete.
Stena Bulk, the ship's owner, said Sunday that authorities at Bandar Abbas have acknowledged, but have not formally responded to, a request to visit the 23 crew members. The owner has said that the vessel was in international waters at the time it was seized.
Friday's seizure came at a time of heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S., a key British ally, stemming from President Donald Trump's decision last year to pull the U.S. from Iran's nuclear accord with world powers and to reinstate sweeping sanctions. The U.S. has expanded its military presence in the region, while Iran has begun openly exceeding the uranium enrichment levels set in the nuclear accord to try to pressure Europe into alleviating the pain caused by the sanctions.
European nations are trying to save the nuclear deal.
U.K. RESPONSE
Prime Minister Theresa May will lead a meeting of the U.K. government's emergency committee today to discuss a response and the security of shipping in the Persian Gulf.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the government then plans to spell out its response in a briefing to Parliament. Officials have said a military response is extremely unlikely, and Britain has taken steps to bolster its diplomatic efforts.
While the government last week threatened Iran with "serious consequences" and advised U.K. ships to avoid the area, leaders on Sunday sought to dial down the rhetoric.
"We need to try and de-escalate this," Defense Minister Tobias Ellwood said in a Sky News interview. "Our first and most important responsibility is to make sure that we get a solution to the issue to do with the current ship, make sure other British-flagged ships are safe to operate in these waters and then look at the wider picture of actually having a working proper professional relationship with Iran."
Ellwood called the seizure "a hostile act" but acknowledged that the British Royal Navy "is too small to manage our interests across the globe" and that this would be an issue for the next prime minister to handle. Britain is, however, adding to its military profile in the region.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that diplomatic and economic measures, including a freeze on Iranian assets, are being considered and that the U.K. may push the European Union and United Nations to reimpose sanctions on Iran. But on Sunday, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond sought to downplay that threat.
"We've already got a wide raft of sanctions against Iran, particularly financial sanctions, so it's not clear that there are immediate additional things that we can do, but we are of course looking at all the options," Hammond said in a BBC interview. Still, "it was an illegal act, and we're going to pursue every possible diplomatic route to resolve this issue," he said.
Iran doesn't have any assets that the British government could seize, according to Ali Naghi Seyyed-Khamoushi, head of the Iran-Britain Joint Chamber of Commerce in Tehran. Any sanctions wouldn't affect Iran's exports and imports to any great extent, he said, according to Iran's Tasnim News Agency.
The seizure of the British-flagged tanker is proving popular inside Iran.
In Tehran, about 160 lawmakers issued a joint statement Sunday praising the interception of the British-flagged vessel by the Revolutionary Guard, which has released video of the seizure that shows Iranian commandos in black ski masks and fatigues rappelling from a helicopter onto the vessel.
At the same time, Britain is gaining support among its traditional European allies. Germany's foreign minister warned Iran that its seizure of commercial vessels is contributing to an "escalation spiral" that could lead to war.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas was quoted Sunday in the Bild newspaper as saying the seizure of the oil tanker and the temporary detention of another has made the situation in the Persian Gulf "a lot more serious and dangerous than it has been." He said European efforts are focused on keeping diplomatic channels open with "voices of reason," despite the challenges involved.
"This is about preventing war," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Gregory Katz and Aya Batrawy of The Associated Press; by Alex Morales, Alex Longley, Golnar Motevalli, Arsalan Shahla and Tim Ross of Bloomberg News; and by David D. Kirkpatrick of The New York Times.
A Section on 07/22/2019