Iran says it could release UK-flagged tanker within days

8 September 2019, 9:24 pm

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Iran hints it could release “within days” a UK-flagged oil tanker it seized in July in sensitive Gulf waters amid rising hostilities with Britain’s ally the United States.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi tells state television that the “necessary steps” to set the Swedish-owned ship free are “underway.”

Abbas Mousavi, spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, gives a press conference in the capital Tehran on May 28, 2019. (ATTA KENARE / AFP)

“The final steps of the legal procedure are underway and, God willing, the boat will be released in the coming days,” he says, without giving further details.

The seizure of the Stena Impero was seen as a tit-for-tat move after British authorities detained an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar in July on suspicion it was shipping oil to Syria in breach of EU sanctions.

— AFP