London: Britain is weighing its next moves in the Gulf tanker crisis, with few good options apparent as a recording emerged showing the Iranian military defied a British warship when it boarded and seized a ship three days ago.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s office says she will chair a meeting of Britain’s COBR emergency response committee in London on Monday morning to discuss the crisis.
Little clue has been given by Britain on how it plans to respond after Iranian Revolutionary Guards rappelled from helicopters and seized the Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday in apparent retaliation for the British capture of an Iranian tanker two weeks earlier.
Footage obtained by Reuters from an Iranian news agency on Sunday showed the tanker docked in an Iranian port with Iran’s flag hoisted atop.
The audio released by maritime security risk firm Dryad Global shows that a British frigate was too far away from the targeted tanker to keep it from being diverted into an Iranian port.
On the recording, a stern-voiced British naval officer insists that the UK-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero must be allowed to sail through the Strait of Hormuz even as Iranian paramilitary forces demand – successfully – that the vessel change course.
The audio shows 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 vital waterway.
Read the article by Aya Batrawy in The Sydney Morning Herald (AP,Reuters).