Iran has said the British-flagged Stena Impero oil tanker is “free” to leave its waters more than two months after the vessel was seized by Revolutionary Guard forces.
"The legal process has finished and based on that the conditions for letting the oil tanker go free have been fulfilled and the oil tanker can move,” said Ali Rabiei, a government spokesman.
It was not clear when the Stena Impero would actually set sail.
The release of the vessel and its crew would mark the end of two-month standoff between the UK and Iran after each seized one of the other’s oil tankers.
The Grace 1 oil tanker, which was seized by Royal Marines on July 4, was released from Gibraltar in August.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps surrounded the Stena Impero with attack boats before rappelling onto the deck of the tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on July 19, in an apparent tit-for-tat response.
Morteza Akhoondi/Tasnim News Agency via AP, File
However, overall tensions between Britain and Iran are unlikely to abate soon. Boris Johnson said on Monday that the UK believed Iran was responsible for attacking Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities on September 14.
Britain is the first major European state to join with the US in pointing the finger of blame at Iran for the attack. Neither France nor Germany have said who they believe was responsible. Iran denies it was behind the strikes.
Stena Bulk, the company that owns the tanker, said on Sunday that it expected the vessel to be released soon, but expressed caution about the situation.
"We understand that the political decision has been taken to release the ship," Stena Bulk’s chief executive Erik Hanell told Swedish television station SVT.
“We hope it will be able to leave in a few hours, but we don’t want to take anything for granted. We want to make sure the ship sails out of Iranian territorial waters," he said.
The 23-man crew aboard the Stena Impero was made up 18 Indians, three Russians, a Latvian and a Filipino. No British citizens were onboard.
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