Ali Rabei, spokesman for the Hassan Rouhani administration, said the crisis involving the oil tankers belonging to the United Kingdom and Iran could be solved diplomatically.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) recently seized the British oil tanker the Stena Impero in the Persian Gulf. The IRGC not only released video of the seizure, in which men dropped from a helicopter onto the tanker, but it also released video of the Islamic call to prayer from the loudspeaker of the British oil tanker. Two weeks ago, the UK had seized an Iranian tanker, Grace 1, off the coast of Gibraltar. The UK claims the Iranian tanker was carrying oil to the Syrian government, which is under an EU embargo.