A
former senior commander with Iran's Revolutionary
Guard Corps has warned it would be Tehran's "duty" to seize a British
oil tanker if the Iranian tanker being held in Gibraltar is not released.
The
vessel was stormed by British Royal Marines and
Gibraltar port and law enforcement agencies in the early hours of Thursday
morning as it was believed to have been carrying oil to Syria, in
possible violation of European Union sanctions.
Mohsen
Rezaee, who is currently Secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council -- an
advisory body to Iran's Supreme Leader -- tweeted that "if the UK does not
release the Iranian oil tanker, our officials are duty-bound to reciprocate and
seize a British oil tanker."
Rezaee
previously served as commander of the IRGC and it is unclear if he's currently
involved in military decision making.
The
British Foreign and Commonwealth Office told CNN it had no comment, at the
moment, in response to the tweet.
Gibraltar's
government said in a statement Friday that it is extending the detention of the
supertanker by 14 days after obtaining an order from the British territory's
Supreme Court.
"The
Supreme Court has issued today's order on the basis that there are reasonable
grounds to consider that the detention of the Grace 1 is required for the
purposes of compliance with the EU Regulation 36/2012 on sanctions on
Syria," the statement said.
On
Thursday Gibraltar's chief minister Fabian Picardo said territory authorities
had reason to believe the Grace 1 "was carrying its shipment of crude oil
to the Baniyas Refinery in Syria."
He
added that the refinery "is the property of an entity that is subject to
European Union sanctions against Syria."
The EU
imposed a number of financial, trade and transport sanctions against Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's regime in 2011 in response to "the
continuing brutal campaign" against its own people.
The
Syrian government has yet to respond to the incident.
A
senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official and Spain's acting foreign minister
Josep Borrell both said the United States had asked the UK to intercept the
ship.
However,
Gibraltar's government said in a statement that there was "no political
request at any time from any government" that the vessel should be
detained.
"The
decisions of Her Majesty's Government of Gibraltar were taken totally
independently, based on breaches of existing law and not at all based on
extraneous political considerations," the statement read, adding that they
"were certainly not decisions taken at the political behest or instruction
of any other state or of any third party."
While several online shipping trackers say the vessel was
sailing under the flag of Panama, the Panama Maritime Authority (PMA) said in a
statement that Grace 1's registry was canceled on May 29 after it was notified
the ship may be participating or linked to financing terrorism.
"The PMA ... was notified of the international alert
regarding the vessel GRACE 1, which indicated that this vessel might be
participating or being linked to the Financing of Terrorism, or in support of
the destabilizing activities of certain regions led by terrorist groups,"
the PMA said.
Seizure
of vessel 'illegal,' Iran says
On Thursday the British ambassador to Tehran was summoned in
Iran over the "illegal" seizure of the oil tanker, a spokesman for
Iran's Foreign Ministry Abbas Mousavi tweeted.
The operation was condemned by a senior Iranian Foreign Ministry
official, who called it "piracy," according to a report from the
semi-official Tasnim news agency on Friday.
The official said the UK does not have the right to implement
its or the EU's unilateral sanctions against other nations "in an
extraterritorial manner" and called for the vessel to be released
immediately after it had been seized "at the behest of the US."
Mousavi
said that that Grace 1's detainment could increase tensions in the Persian
Gulf, the state-run Press TV reported.
The
ship is currently anchored off the coast of Gibraltar, a British overseas
territory on the edge of southern Spain.
It
comes at a time of heightened tensions between the US and Iran. Earlier this
week, Iran announced it would stop complying with
several parts of the 2015 nuclear deal that the Trump
administration withdrew from last year.
On
Thursday the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) welcomed what it called "firm
action by the Gibraltarian authorities, acting to enforce the EU Syria
sanctions regime."
While
John Bolton, national security adviser to US President Donald Trump, also
chimed in with the tweet: "America & our allies will continue to
prevent regimes in Tehran & Damascus from profiting off this illicit
trade," he wrote.
Tanker 'loaded Iranian oil months ago'
In mid-April, the Grace 1 loaded up with Iranian oil and turned
off its tracking signals to avoid detection before sailing around the Cape of
Good Hope in southern Africa to the Strait of Gibraltar, according to an
article published in maritime publication Lloyds List earlier this
week.
"Any tanker with Iranian crude follows a similar pattern of
behavior: they do that by turning off their AIS transponder, turning it on and
off in order to circumvent being tracked," Michelle Wiese Bockmann, the
author of the article, told CNN on Thursday.
"They have deliberately taken measures to circumvent
identifying the ship's destination, location and cargo origin."
Samir
Madani, co-founder of Tanker Trackers -- which monitors vessels through
satellite and maritime data -- told CNN that the Grace 1's journey around
Africa took two-and-a-half months, a month longer than usual. He added that he
did not believe the vessel was carrying crude oil but instead fuel oil from
Iran's Abadan Refinery.
"We
can also see that she is heavily laden in the water. Her hull is 22.5 meters
deep, meaning that she is carrying 2 million barrels of a very heavy liquid.
Heavier than crude oil," he said. "Not only that, but her previous
assignments were transfers of fuel oil in Umm Qasr (Iraq) and Khor Fakkan
(UAE)."
Madani
also added that he believes the ship's destination was not Syria's Baniyas
Refinery as the waters would be too shallow for the vessel to enter.
"Instead,
we believe that the fuel oil was intended for ship-to-ship transfers to other
vessels within Syria's maritime borders," Madani said.