UK joins US-led mission in Persian Gulf

LONDON

The U.K. on Monday joined the U.S. in its mission to protect oil tankers passing through the Persian Gulf from being seized by Iran.

The royal navy will supply two warships alongside two U.S. warships and will jointly patrol one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The U.K., however, has become the only European country to have joined the mission and has urged others to follow suit.

"Our aim is to build the broadest international support to uphold international navigation," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement, adding that the U.K.’s position regarding the nuclear deal and its wider approach to Iran remains unchanged.

European powers Germany and France have refused to join the U.S.-led mission, uncertain as to whether it will further damage the strained nuclear deal that the U.S. has pulled out of and which Iran has begun to breach.

The U.K.’s decision to join the new mission follows heightened tensions between Iran after royal navy marines detained an Iranian oil tanker in Gibraltar for illegal transferring oil to Syria and Iran’s revolutionary guards corp detaining a British oil tanker in the Persian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas.

On July 20, the Stena Impero was seized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. According to former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the tanker was surrounded by four vessels and a helicopter and was rerouted into Iranian waters. Although the ship is U.K.-owned, none of the 23 crew members are British.

The U.K. since dispatched a second warship to the Persian Gulf to support U.K. forces in the region and to ensure the safety of British commercial ships.