UK Sending Third Warship to Gulf Amid Heightened Tensions

The United Kingdom will send a third Royal Navy warship to the Gulf in September, the Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday. It added that the move did not “reflect an escalation” of tensions with Iran in the region. However, the British government has raised the alert level for ships traveling through Iranian waters to three on a three-point scale, indicating a “critical” threat. Last week, HMS Montrose, a British warship, warned-off five Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-manned vessels that UK officials said were interfering with a British oil tanker’s passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian officials denied the incident took place. It came a week after British Royal Marines seized an Iranian tanker, Grace 1, off Gibraltar on suspicion that it was breaking both American and European Union sanctions by taking Iranian oil to Syria. Iran denied the vessel was heading there, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Britain would face “consequences” over the seizure. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on Monday that the vessel would be released if Tehran could guarantee it was not heading to Syria.