DUBAI/WASHINGTON--Iran said it had seized a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday but denied Washington's assertion that the U.S. Navy had downed an Iranian drone nearby this week, as tensions in the Gulf region grew again.
Britain said it was urgently seeking information about the Stena Impero tanker, which had been heading to a port in Saudi Arabia and suddenly changed course after passing through the strait at the mouth of the Gulf.
Iran's state news agency IRNA quoted a military source as saying the vessel had turned off its tracker, ignored warnings from the Revolutionary Guards and was sailing in the wrong direction in a shipping lane.
"We will respond in a way that is considered but robust and we are absolutely clear that if this situation is not resolved quickly there will be serious consequences," British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told reporters.
Hunt said Britain was "not looking at military options, we are looking at a diplomatic way to resolve the situation."
The Revolutionary Guards have not captured a second tanker - the British-operated, Liberian-flagged ship Mesdar - in the Gulf, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, quoting regional military sources. The Mesdar had turned sharply north toward Iran's coast on Friday afternoon but then changed course again and headed westward away from Iran, according to Refinitiv tracking data.
Relations between Washington and Tehran worsened last year when U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran. Under the pact, Iran agreed to restrict nuclear work, long seen by the West as a cover for developing atomic bombs, in return for lifting sanctions. But sanctions have been imposed again, badly hurting Iran's economy.
Trump said he would talk to Britain about the report of the British tanker being seized in the Gulf.
Relations between Iran and the West have been increasingly strained in recent months over security in the Gulf, U.S. sanctions on Iran and Tehran's nuclear program. Military incidents in the Gulf have increased international concern that both sides could blunder into a war in the strategic waterway, which is vital to world oil supplies.
Oil prices gained on Friday, trading above $62 a barrel, after the latest spike in tensions along the waterway.
Iran shot down a U.S. drone in the Gulf in June and British naval forces seized an Iranian tanker in Gibraltar on July 4 on suspicion of smuggling oil to Syria. The U.S. military said on Friday that unarmed surveillance aircraft were in international airspace, monitoring the Strait of Hormuz and had been in contact with U.S. ships in the area.
"We have patrol aircraft operating in international airspace monitoring the situation within the Strait of Hormuz," said Lieutenant Colonel Earl Brown, a U.S. Central Command spokesman.
Iran and the United States were at odds over a U.S. assertion that its Navy had shot down an Iranian drone on Thursday in the Strait of Hormuz because it had come too close to a U.S. warship. Trump said there was no doubt the U.S. Navy warship Boxer had destroyed an Iranian drone but Tehran showed video footage that it said disproved the incident even happened.
“No doubt about it, no. We shot it down,” Trump said. Speaking about Iran, he said the United States hopes "for their sake they don’t do anything foolish. If they do they will pay a price like nobody has ever paid a price.”
Trump said on Thursday that the Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, had destroyed an Iranian drone because it had flown to within 1,000 yards (914 meters) of the ship in a "provocative and hostile action." A U.S. official said the drone was brought down by electronic jamming.
But Iran said all of its drones were accounted for. "All drones belonging to Iran in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz ... returned safely to their bases after their mission of identification and control," Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior Iranian armed forces spokesman, was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency as saying.
He said there was no report of any "operational response" by the Boxer and Iran's state television broadcast a video showing aerial views of ships that it said disproved the U.S. assertion. The television station said the footage, which came from Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and the timing notations indicated the pilotless aircraft was still filming after Washington said it had been downed.
