* Iran acted two weeks after Britain seized Iranian tanker
* Britain calls Iranian action an illegal, hostile act
* Confrontation comes after U.S. tightened sanctions
* GRAPHIC: Iran seizes British-flagged oil tanker https://tmsnrt.rs/2O646ZX
(Adds May to chair meeting of emergency committee in paragraph
2)
By Parisa Hafezi and Peter Graff
DUBAI/LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) - Britain was weighing its
next moves in the Gulf tanker crisis on Sunday, with few good
options apparent as a recording emerged showing that the Iranian
military defied a British warship when it boarded and seized a
ship three days ago.
Prime Minister Theresa May's office said she would chair a
meeting of Britain's COBR emergency response committee on Monday
morning to discuss the crisis.
Little clue has been given by Britain on how it plans to
respond after Iranian Revolutionary Guards rappelled from
helicopters and seized the Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz
on Friday in apparent retaliation for the British capture of an
Iranian tanker two weeks earlier.
Footage obtained by Reuters from an Iranian news agency on
Sunday showed the tanker docked in an Iranian port -- with
Iran's flag now hoisted atop.
The British government is expected to announce its next
steps in a speech to parliament on Monday. But experts on the
region say there are few obvious steps London can take at a time
when the United States has already imposed the maximum possible
economic sanctions, banning all Iranian oil exports worldwide.
"We rant and rave and we shout at the ambassador and we hope
it all goes away," said Tim Ripley, a British defence expert who
writes about the Gulf for Jane's Defence Weekly.
"I don't see at this point in time us being able to offer a
concession that can resolve the crisis. Providing security and
escort for future ships is a different matter."
A day after calling the Iranian action a "hostile act", top
British officials kept comparatively quiet on Sunday, making
clear that they had yet to settle on a response.
"We are going to be looking at a series of options," junior
defence minister Tobias Ellwood told Sky News. "We will be
speaking with our colleagues, our international allies, to see
what can actually be done.
"Our first and most important responsibility is to make sure
we get a solution to the issue to do with the current ship, make
sure other British-flagged ships are safe to operate in these
waters and then look at the wider picture."
MONTHS OF CONFRONTATION
The Iranian capture of the ship in the global oil trade's
most important waterway was the latest escalation in three
months of spiralling confrontation with the West that began when
new, tighter U.S. sanctions took effect at the start of May.
Washington imposed the sanctions after President Donald
Trump pulled out of a deal signed by his predecessor Barack
Obama, which had provided Iran access to world trade in return
for curbs on its nuclear programme.
European countries including Britain have been caught in the
middle. They disagreed with the U.S. decision to quit the
nuclear deal but have so far failed to offer Iran another way to
receive the deal's promised economic benefits.
Britain was thrust more directly into the confrontation on
July 4, when its Royal Marines seized an Iranian tanker off the
coast of Gibraltar. Britain accused it of violating sanctions on
Syria, prompting repeated Iranian threats of retaliation.
While Iran's official line is that its capture of the Stena
Impero was because of safety issues, it has done little to hide
that the move was retaliatory. The tactics it used -- with
masked troops rappelling from helicopters -- matched those the
British had used two weeks before.
Parliament speaker Ali Larijani spelled it out more clearly
on Sunday, telling a parliament session: "The Revolutionary
Guards responded to Britain's hijacking of the Iranian tanker."
Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, blamed
Washington and Trump's hawkish national security adviser John
Bolton for luring Britain into conflict.
"Having failed to lure @realDonaldTrump into War of the
Century ... @AmbJohnBolton is turning his venom against the UK
in hopes of dragging it into a quagmire," Zarif wrote on
Twitter. "Only prudence and foresight can thwart such ploys."
RADIO MESSAGES
In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, Britain said the
Stena Impero was approached by Iranian forces in Omani
territorial waters, where it was exercising its lawful right of
passage, and that the action "constitutes illegal interference".
Britain's warship in the Gulf, the HMS Montrose, contacted
an Iranian patrol vessel in an effort to ward off a boarding of
the Stena Impero, according to radio messages provided to
Reuters by maritime security firm Dryad Global.
"Please confirm that you are not intending to violate
international law by unlawfully attempting to board," the
Montrose said in the radio message.
The Iranian patrol boat is heard instructing the Stena
Impero to alter course. Responding to the Montrose, it says it
intends to "inspect the ship for security purposes".
Defence expert Ripley noted that Iran's choice of target
appeared to have been calibrated to test Britain's response
without provoking a bigger crisis.
Unlike the Iranian tanker seized a fortnight earlier, which
was carrying a valuable cargo of 2 million barrels of oil, the
Stena Impero was on its way to the Gulf and empty at the time it
was seized. The 23 crew are mainly Indians and include no
British citizens, the presence of which might have led to calls
in London to take more drastic action, Ripley said.
He added that Iran is likely to view any British response
through the wider prism of its conflict with the United States.
"If the Americans are going to continue to enforce this
embargo, there's no incentive for the Iranians not to take more
tankers. What have they got to lose?" said Ripley.
An Iranian official who asked not to be identified made a
similar point.
"Iran is displaying its power without entering a military
confrontation," the official said. "This is the result of
America's mounting pressure on Iran."
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GRAPHIC: Iran seizes British-flagged oil tanker https://tmsnrt.rs/2O646ZX
FACTBOX-Strait of Hormuz: the world's most important oil artery
ID:nL8N24M0JL
TIMELINE-Iran's recent clashes with the West over Gulf shipping,
nuclear plans ID:nL8N24M0GP
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