{"id":47336,"date":"2019-07-19T17:06:04","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T22:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=47336"},"modified":"2019-07-19T17:06:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T22:06:09","slug":"uk-holds-crisis-meeting-after-tanker-seizure-as-armed-aircraft-protects-us-cargo-ship-in-gulf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=47336","title":{"rendered":"UK Holds Crisis Meeting After Tanker Seizure As Armed Aircraft Protects US Cargo Ship In Gulf"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2019-07-19\/uk-holds-crisis-meeting-armed-aircraft-protects-us-cargo-ship-gulf\">UK Holds Crisis Meeting After Tanker Seizure As Armed Aircraft Protects US Cargo Ship In Gulf<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">British officials are scrambling after two UK tankers were&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2019-07-19\/british-tanker-suddenly-diverts-iranian-waters-feared-seized-irgc\">captured by Iran<\/a>&nbsp;in one dramatic day in the gulf&nbsp;<em>\u2014&nbsp;<\/em>or rather we should clarify that the Stena Impero is UK flagged but not owned by a UK company (the owner&nbsp;&#8216;Stena Bulk&#8217; is based in Sweden), while the&nbsp;Mesdar is Liberian flagged but is in fact owned by a UK company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AlHadath\/status\/1152317794366763008\">Iranian state media<\/a>&nbsp;is&nbsp;<strong>denying that the Liberian flagged, UK-owned tanker captured is still being held<\/strong>, with new reports it&#8217;s&nbsp;been released, per the following wire updates:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Norbulk Shipping UK says Liberian registered vessel Mesdar was<strong>\u00a0boarded by armed personnel<\/strong>\u00a0at approximately 17:30 BST on Friday.<\/p><p>&#8230;Norbulk says armed guards have left and the vessel is now free to continue to voyage, crew safe and well.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/two%20tankers%20seized.png\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption><em>The two tankers seized Friday, via The Telegraph.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt voiced that Britain&nbsp;is \u201cextremely concerned\u201d by the \u201cunacceptable\u201d seizure of the two vessels IRGC forces in the Strait of Hormuz.&nbsp;<strong>\u201cI will shortly attend a COBR meeting to review what we know and what we can do to swiftly secure the release of the two vessels,\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2019\/07\/19\/british-oil-tanker-seized-strait-hormuz\/\">he said<\/a>&nbsp;in reference to a Cabinet Office Briefing Room meeting over the&nbsp;major crisis, which is equivalent to the National Security Council&#8217;s &#8216;situation room&#8217; meetings.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cTheir crews comprise a range of nationalities, but we understand there are no British citizens on board either ship,\u201d Hunt continued, according to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/nation-world\/nation\/iran-denies-us-destroyed-an-iranian-drone-near-persian-gulf\/\">the AP<\/a>. \u201cThese seizures are unacceptable. It is essential that freedom of navigation is maintained and that all ships can move safely and freely in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile the UK Chamber of Shipping&nbsp;also said it &#8220;condemn unreservedly&#8221; the capture of the British-owned vessel, but it remains unclear the precise order of the pair of tankers&#8217; capture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UK Holds Crisis Meeting After Tanker Seizure As Armed Aircraft Protects US Cargo Ship In Gulf British officials are scrambling after two UK tankers were&nbsp;captured by Iran&nbsp;in one dramatic day in the gulf&nbsp;\u2014&nbsp;or rather we should clarify that the Stena Impero is UK flagged but not owned by a UK company (the owner&nbsp;&#8216;Stena Bulk&#8217; is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[441,26055,9311,820,2080],"class_list":["post-47336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-iran","tag-oil-tanker","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47337,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47336\/revisions\/47337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}