Iran calls for Britain to immediately release oil tanker

Iran reiterated calls for Britain on Friday to immediately release an oil tanker that British Royal Marines seized last week on suspicion it was breaking European sanctions by taking oil to Syria, a foreign ministry spokesman told state news agency IRNA.

“This is a dangerous game and has consequences ... the legal pretexts for the capture are not valid ... the release of the tanker is in all countries’ interest,” the spokesman, Abbas Mousavi, said.

It comes after the UK government said Iranian boats tried to impede a British oil tanker in the Gulf on Wednesday.

Britain said on Thursday that three Iranian vessels tried to block a British-owned tanker passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which controls the flow of Middle East oil to the world, but backed off when confronted by a Royal Navy warship.

Iran denied that its vessels had done any such thing.

Tension between Iran and the West has increased a week after Britain seized the tanker and London said the British Heritage, operated by oil company BP, had been approached in the strait between Iran and the Arabian peninsula.

Mousavi accused Britain of seizing the tanker under U.S. pressure.“Such illegal measures could increase tensions in the Persian Gulf,” he told IRNA.

Tensions between Iran and the US and its allies have risen sharply since Washington last year unilaterally withdrew from a landmark nuclear deal signed between Tehran and world powers in 2015.

Since then, the administration of US President Donald Trump has stepped up economic sanctions against Iran and moved to bring the country's oil exports to zero as part of a "maximum pressure" policy to make it halt actions that it said undermined regional security.

Iran has responded to the sanctions by starting to exceed limits put on its nuclear activities under the 2015 deal.