Britain Should Not Reward Iranian Hostage-Taking - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-25/britain-should-not-reward-iranian-hostage-taking
Circle of deceit.
Photographer: Contributor#072019/Getty Images Europe Trading a legally detained ship for an unjustly seized one is a losing proposition.
Confronting the first crisis of his premiership, Boris Johnson must decide what to do about the Stena Impero, the British oil tanker being held by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The regime in Tehran has named its price: the release of the Grace 1, an Iranian ship carrying oil to Syria that was seized by the Royal Navy off Gibraltar.
Johnson must know that such a trade would set a dangerous precedent. The Iranian supertanker was stopped because it was contravening European Union sanctions against the genocidal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. The British vessel was, in essence, taken hostage—as the swap offer demonstrates. This is an extension of the regime’s longstanding history of diplomatic blackmail. If it so chooses, Iran can mount a legal challenge to the seizure of the Grace 1. But the trumped-up charges against the Stena Impero—Iran has furnished no evidence of an accident with a trawler—suggests that its fate, and that of its 23-member crew, is at the whim of Iran’s leadership.