Iran Seizes Oil Tanker in Persian Gulf - The New York Times

Iran has seized a foreign oil tanker in the Persian Gulf that was smuggling fuel to some Arab states, according to a state television report on Sunday.

The report said that the tanker had been detained and the ship’s foreign crew held by the country’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

No further details were provided, including who owns the vessel and the nationalities of the seized crew members. But it was the third such seizure by Iran in a month amid a standoff with the West over a 2015 nuclear deal and punishing sanctions that have hobbled Iran’s economy.

In July, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps detained a foreign oil tanker said to have been smuggling fuel, state news media reported.

Reports said the ship detained on Sunday had been carrying about 700,000 liters of fuel, about 185,000 United States standard gallons. The semiofficial Iranian news agency Fars said on Twitter that “seven foreign nationals” had been detained. The news agency Mehr reported that the ship had been seized near Farsi Island, a tiny, barren Iranian territory northwest of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Revolutionary Guards statement said the seizure had taken place to the south of the Iranian island of Larak, in the northern part of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that is a vital conduit for maritime petroleum traffic in and out of the Persian Gulf.

The oil tanker was transferred to Bushehr Province, the statement said, and its cargo delivered to the department of the National Iranian Oil Product Distribution Company in the same province, Mehr reported.

The seizure occurred days after the United States slapped sanctions on Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, an American-educated diplomat who negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal between Western powers and Tehran.

Defying U.S. Sanctions, China and Others Take Oil From 12 Iranian Tankers

The U.S. has been unable to halt Iranian oil exports.

American officials said the foreign minister was part of a “propaganda arm.” But experts said the sanctions would make it more difficult to engage in any new diplomacy. Iranian officials called the move petty and provocative.

Iran and the West has been embroiled in dispute over shipping near the Strait of Hormuz as European countries scramble to save the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran after President Trump pulled the United States out of the accord last year.

Britain seized an Iranian tanker, the Grace 1, off the coast of Gibraltar in July, saying it suspected the ship had been headed to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions. Iran called the seizure an act of piracy, and accused Britain of acting at the behest of Washington.

Later that month, Revolutionary Guards troops also detained a British-flagged tanker, the Stena Impero, near the Strait of Hormuz, accusing it of violating “three international naval regulations.”

Iran appeared to link the British seizure of its tanker and the ailing nuclear deal, pressing Europe to make good on the promised financial benefits of the 2015 agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or J.C.P.O.A.

“Since Iran is entitled to export its oil according to the J.C.P.O.A., any impediment in the way of Iran’s export of oil is actually against the J.C.P.O.A.,” Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said after emergency talks in Vienna last Sunday.

That day, a second British Royal Navy warship, the H.M.S. Duncan, arrived in the Persian Gulf to escort ships flying the British flag through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran had warned against sending foreign vessels to escort ships in the gulf. A government spokesman in Tehran, Ali Rabiei, had said that such a move would carry “a hostile message, is provocative and will increase tensions.”

Tensions had already running high in the Persian Gulf. On May 2, the Trump administration’s oil sanctions came into full effect against Iran. It is not illegal under international law to buy and haul Iranian oil or related products, but foreign companies that ignore the sanctions risk being punished by the United States.

An examination of the movements of more than 70 Iranian tankers since May 2 found that 12 of these tankers loaded oil after May 2 and delivered it to China or the Eastern Mediterranean, where the buyers might have included Syria or Turkey. Only some of those 12 tankers were previously known to have recently delivered Iranian oil.

The continued flow of oil highlights the difficulty the Trump administration has had in using sanctions to bring Iranian oil exports to zero after breaking with allies and partners on Iran policy.

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