An Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander has threatened to seize a British ship in retaliation for the capture of an Iranian supertanker in Gibraltar by Royal Marines.
“If Britain does not release the Iranian oil tanker, it is the authorities’ duty to seize a British oil tanker,” Mohsen Rezai said on Twitter.
The Gibraltar government said on Friday it had obtained a court order extending the detention of the Grace I supertanker by 14 days because there were grounds to believe it was breaking sanctions by taking oil to Syria.
The government said earlier the crew were being interviewed as witnesses, not criminal suspects, in an effort to establish the nature of the cargo and its ultimate destination.
British Royal Marines abseiled onto the ship off the coast of the British territory on Thursday and seized it over accusations it was breaking sanctions by taking oil to Syria.
They landed a helicopter on the moving vessel in pitch darkness.
The move escalates a confrontation between Iran and the West just weeks after the US called off air strikes minutes before impact.
It also draws Washington’s close ally into a crisis in which European powers had striven to appear neutral.
Tehran summoned the British ambassador on Thursday to voice “its very strong objection to the illegal and unacceptable seizure” of its ship, a move that also eliminated doubt about the ownership of the vessel.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said the crude oil cargo was from Iran.
Read the article by Kate Holton and Parisa Hafezi in The Canberra Times.