Britain on Saturday denounced Iran’s seizure of a British-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf as a ‘hostile act’ and rejected Tehran’s explanation that it seized the vessel because it had been involved in an accident.
Britain will send a third warship to the Persian Gulf, though the move is not related to the current Iran crisis, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said on Tuesday.
Britain is sending a second warship to the Gulf amid rising tensions with Iran, as it said it was discussing with the US the possibility of building up its military presence in the area.
The number of people in Britain identifying as Christian is in ‘dramatic decline’, according to the latest figures from the British Social Attitudes Survey.
France, Britain and Germany said on Sunday they were preoccupied by the escalation of tensions in the Persian Gulf region and a risk of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal falling apart, calling for dialog between all the parties to resume.
A closed-door meeting of the UN atomic watchdog agency in Vienna Wednesday determined that Iran had indeed breached the 3.76% uranium enrichment limit of the 2015 nuclear deal, confirming reports from Iran Monday that it had ramped up its enrichment to 4.5%.
Britain said Thursday that three Iranian vessels unsuccessfully tried to impede the passage of a British commercial vessel through the Strait of Hormuz, signaling a further escalation of tensions over a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
Tehran warned Tuesday that Britain’s seizure of an Iranian oil tanker will not go ‘unanswered’ after denying earlier in the week that the ship detained in Gibraltar was carrying crude to Syria, which would put it in violation of EU sanctions.
Iran is calling for the detention of a British oil tanker in retaliation for an Iranian ship carrying crude oil to Syria that was detained in the British territory of Gibraltar.
The remaining signatories to the 2015 international pact to restrain Iran’s nuclear weapons development all voiced concern Tuesday that Tehran had exceeded the limit of how much low-enriched uranium it could stockpile.
US President Donald Trump warned Monday that Iran was ‘playing with fire’ after Tehran said it exceeded a limit on enriched uranium reserves under a 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by Washington.
Syria said Israeli jets attacked several military sites near the capital Damascus and the central city of Homs early Monday, killing four civilians, including an infant.
Brian Hook, U.S. special envoy for Iran, is in Paris discussing the looming crisis in the Persian Gulf with Britain, France, and Germany, ahead of talks Friday that will see the European allies seek to implement the ‘INSTEX’ currency system with Iran to circumvent Trump’s sanctions.
Germany and Britain on Monday warned Tehran not to breach uranium stockpile limits set by the 2015 nuclear deal, as the EU’s diplomatic chief dismissed Iranian threats as ‘political dialectics.’
After the US accused Iran of being behind the attack on the oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, senior Israeli officials told Channel 13 that they too believe that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were the ones who carried out the attack on the oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.
The Trump administration is reportedly considering sanctions against an Iranian financial body set up to enable humanitarian trade with Europe, a measure that would likely end any possibility of European countries maintaining economic and humanitarian trade with Tehran.
Iran criticized on Monday the European signatories of its 2015 nuclear deal for failing to salvage the pact after President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of it last year and reimposed sanctions, state television reported.
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, Prime Minister Theresa May, and U.S. President Donald Trump are set to gather with other world leaders in southern England to mark the anniversary of the D-Day invasion during World War II.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday told Syria and Russia to stop ‘bombing the hell’ out of Syria’s last jihadist stronghold Idlib.
The European Union will not renegotiate the Brexit deal that Prime Minister Theresa May agreed, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Tuesday, as concerns grew that a successor to May could trigger a confrontation with the bloc.