And Now, Gibraltar Becomes A Flashpoint In The Iran Standoff

Last Friday, after meetings in Vienna, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araqchi told reporters that although talks with European officials represented a “step forward”, they were “not enough”.

By that, Araqchi meant that Europe was unable to provide the kinds of economic guarantees sufficient to compel Tehran to halt nuclear provocations and stand by its commitments under the landmark accord Donald Trump pulled the US out of in 2018.

“The decision to reduce our commitments [under the nuclear accord] has already been made and we will continue unless our expectations are met”, he said. “I don’t think the progress made today will be enough to stop our process but the decision will be made in Tehran”.

Read more: ‘Not Enough’: While You Were Focused On Osaka, The More Important Meeting Was In Vienna

Fast forward to this week and Iran has breached a stockpile limit on enriched uranium, threatened to restart a mothballed reactor and warned that the country will now “increase enrichment as we please”.

Hassan Rouhani also called Donald Trump “mentally retarded”.

In response, Trump said he might “obliterate” Iran and, on Wednesday, the US president threatened to bite Rouhani “like nobody has been bitten before”.

I’ll pause for laughter.

Europe’s efforts to salvage the nuclear deal have centered around a special purpose vehicle called Instex, which has been in the works since last October and is now operational. The problem, though, is that it likely cannot process transactions for Iranian crude and even if it could, the Trump administration would probably sanction it. The Treasury department has already threatened the SPV. Mike Pompeo and John Bolton have lambasted the scheme as counterproductive and dangerous.

Through it all, Europe and Iran have maintained a reasonably constructive dialogue, but that might be about to change. On Thursday, British special forces commandeered a supertanker (Grace 1) off Gibraltar and bound for Syria.

It is suspected of carrying Iranian crude.

“This action arose from information giving the Gibraltar Government reasonable grounds to believe that the vessel, the Grace 1, was acting in breach of European Union sanctions against Syria”, Gibraltar’s chief minister said, in a statement. Specifically, Gibraltar says the crude was headed to Banyas Refinery.

As it turns out, Grace 1 travelled all the way around the Cape and up the west coast of Africa, as opposed to traversing the Suez Canal. There’s a simple explanation for that. As Bloomberg notes, “the shorter route would require it to discharge half its cargo, load it on to a smaller ship or send the oil through the Sumed Pipeline, and pick it up again in the Mediterranean [but] Iran can’t pump oil through the pipeline… because the link is owned by companies from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar”. Bloomberg says that although there’s no official confirmation that the oil is Iranian, data shows it was likely loaded at Kharg Island in April.

In addition to being a real pain for Syria, which, of course, relies on Iranian crude supplies, Tehran is likely to see this as yet another sign that Europe is unwilling to assert its independence from the Trump administration.

The EU will simply argue that because the vessel was bound for a government-owned refinery in Syria that’s under sanctions, Britain was fully justified in seizing the ship.

Whatever the case, look for this to be another flashpoint and potentially undermine ongoing negotiations between the European powers and Tehran at a time when the theocracy is essentially telling the world that if everyone wants to abide by the nuclear accord, that’s more than fine with Tehran, but Iran isn’t going to be the only party that’s in compliance if nobody else is going to hold up their end of the deal.

Full statement from Gibraltar’s chief minister Fabian Picardo:

In the early hours of this morning, Gibraltar Port and Law Enforcement agencies, assisted by a detachment of Royal Marines, boarded a super tanker carrying crude oil to Syria.

We have detained the vessel and its cargo.

This action arose from information giving the Gibraltar Government reasonable grounds to believe that the vessel, the Grace 1, was acting in breach of European Union sanctions against Syria.

In fact, we have reason to believe that the Grace 1 was carrying its shipment of crude oil to the Banyas Refinery in Syria.

That refinery is the property of an entity that is subject to European Union sanctions against Syria.

Yesterday we published Regulations and a Notice to enforce those sanctions against this vessel and its cargo.

I also gave a Direction requiring the Captain of the Port, assisted by the Royal Gibraltar Police and Her Majesty’s Customs to take control of the Grace 1.

With my consent, our Port and Law Enforcement agencies sought the assistance of the Royal Marines in carrying out this operation.

As the sanctions being enforced are established by the EU, I have written this morning to the Presidents of the European Commission and Council, setting out the details of the sanctions which we have enforced.

I want to thank the brave men and women of the Royal Marines, the Royal Gibraltar Police, Her Majesty’s Customs Gibraltar and the Gibraltar Port Authority, for their work in securing the detention of this vessel and its cargo.

Be assured that Gibraltar remains safe, secure and committed to the international, rules-based, legal order.