The US has urged Australia to join a “global coalition” to police troubled Persian Gulf waters as an emboldened Iran announced it had seized another tanker.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used a whirlwind weekend trip to Australia to ask for help to make the Strait of Hormuz safe for international ships passing Iran.
It comes as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed to have seized a yet-to-be-identified foreign oil tanker and detained seven crew it says were smuggling fuel.
The vessel was intercepted near Iran’s Farsi Island in the Gulf, according to Iran’s news agency Fars.
“The IRGC’s naval forces have seized a foreign oil tanker in the Persian Gulf that was smuggling fuel for some Arab countries,” state television quoted the Guards commander Ramezan Zirahi.
It was carrying 700,000 litres of fuel, he said, without elaborating on the nationalities of the detained crewmen and on which country or company owned the ship.
“The seizure of the oil tanker was in coordination with Iran’s judiciary authorities and based on their order,” Fars reported.
“It was taken to the Bushehr port, where its fuel was handed over to the authorities.”
Mr Pompeo has asked Australia to help confront Iran given its “unprovoked attacks on international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz”.
“We’re asking every nation that has energy needs, that has goods and services passing through, to contribute to our effort,” he said.
Donald Trump has been trying to forge a military coalition to secure Gulf waters, though European allies have been loath to join for fear of provoking open conflict.
European parties to the deal – Britain, France and Germany – have appealed for diplomatic moves to defuse the crisis and have been trying to salvage the pact by exploring ways to shield Iran’s economy from US sanctions.
Australia’s Defence minister Senator Linda Reynolds said Canberra was giving the request “very serious consideration”.
A spokesman for the US Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said they had no information to confirm the latest tanker seizure.
Tensions have been rising between Iran and the West since last year when the United States pulled out of a 2015 nuclear pact and resumed sanctions against the country.
Iran responded by announcing it would increase its uranium enrichment and has since been capturing and attacking tankers passing through international waters in the Gulf.
Last month, guards seized the Panama-flagged MT Riah and the British tanker Stena Impero two weeks after British forces captured an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar.
Describing the seizure of the Stena Impero in the Strait as illegal, Britain has rejected the idea that it could release the Iranian tanker in exchange for the British-flagged vessel.
Britain said on July 25 it had started sending a warship to accompany all British-flagged vessels through the Strait.
Iran also has threatened to block all exports through the Strait of Hormuz, if countries heed US calls to stop buying Iranian oil. A fifth of global oil consumption passes through the Strait from Middle East crude producers to major markets.
The secretary of state will fly out of Sydney on Monday morning heading to Micronesia.
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