Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif responded to Britain's warnings against aggression in the Persian Gulf on Saturday with one of his own.
"Unlike the piracy in the Strait of Gibraltar, our action in the Persian Gulf is to uphold int'l maritime rules," Zarif said on Twitter, referring to the UK's seizure of an Iranian oil tanker in Gibraltar. "UK must cease being an accessory to #EconomicTerrorism of the US."
Iran's capture of the Stena Impero on Friday came just hours after authorities in Gibraltar agreed to extend the detention of an Iranian oil tanker in its custody for 30 days. That ship, the Grace 1, was seized by British authorities on July 4, accused of attempting to transport oil to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions.
Observers had expected Iran to respond to the Grace 1's seizure, and the UK raised the security level for British ships in the Persian Gulf just last week.
Alan West, a former head of the Royal Navy, said Britain should be unsurprised by the seizing of the Stena Impero tanker, warning that the UK had “too few ships” to defend its interests in the Gulf.
“What I find extraordinary is that we knew that the Iranians would try something like this a few days ago,” he told Sky News. “I’m absolutely amazed that we haven’t implemented some sort of control of red ensign shipping within the region whereby no tanker would go in to what is clearly a dangerous zone without an escort, and I find it bizarre that we seem to have ships doing exactly that.”
https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/iran-british-tanker-july-2019/index.html
2019-07-20 15:00:00Z
52780335499826
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar