 Hello and welcome to News Clicks International Roundup. In this episode, we're going to discuss the tanker wars that are going on between Iran and Britain. And to do this, we are joined by Prabir Purkayasar. So, Prabir beginning made last week's incident when the British Royal Marines seized the oil tanker Grace One, which was carrying Iranian oil to Syria near Gibraltar, which is a British overseas territory. And they said that the reason is that this oil being transported to Syria violates sanctions, EU sanctions on Syria. Now, there are no, there is no oil embargo on Syria as such according to EU sanctions and also Iran is not an EU member state. So, can you comment on the legality of this action? Well, two things first. There is no evidence as of now to show that it was carrying oil to Syria. So, even that is something which is under question. The second part of it is what was the oil? It appears to be crude oil. It appears that it is a, it's a super tanker. It's not even a normal tanker. It's a super tanker, which means the amount of oil it carries is much larger. And it does appear that if the arguments that are being given regarding its destination being Syria, specifically the Banias refinery and therefore the Banias port, if that's to be taken to be correct, is difficult to see how this super tanker could have unloaded its fuel there or it's a crude oil there because the draft that is there in the port does not accommodate the size of a super tanker. And that's also one of the reasons it had to go around the Cape of Good Hope because essentially it could not go through Suez Canal. Even if you take for granted that Iranian oil going to Suez Canal could have had, could have been seized by Egypt under the directions by the United States. So even if we don't take that account, it really had to go around the Cape of Good Hope because of its sheer size. The question that it, that also needs to be raised is that Grace 1 is largely used for what are they called offshore transfers. Therefore they really are transferred from ship to ship. So they are not transferred from ship to port. That doesn't seem to be the way this tanker is used. This is all the information that is available in public domain. The second point which is also interesting that for the Indian side at least there is an interest that the captain of the ship was an Indian and I saw I believe is the first officer. So they have been specifically charged with violating sanctions or specifically as you said EU sanctions. Now third point I think it's also important to register this, that this seizure of a tanker in Gibraltar, that the Gibraltar laws really have this in its statuettes. And it does seem that 3rd July the laws were changed or modified to allow for such a seizure. Before that it didn't seem to be there. So it does seem that the UK had prepared in advance that it will seize Grace 1. Now UK has been opposing the American sanctions. So why would it want to get involved in this at the moment not clear? Unless we see the US state agencies as Ambassador Bhadrakumar said here a couple of days back actually are working with the American state intelligence agencies and not the UK government that could be a charitable interpretation. The other interpretation could be that UK is clearly choosing sides while playing lip service to the JCPOA agreement and the fact that the United States has withdrawn from it not being correct and the EU should try to see how the agreement can be salvaged. Coming to the question that you raised the EU sanctions. The EU sanctions if we go through it and various people have commented on that it seems Syrian exports of oil are sanctioned. But not imports of oil to Syria they have not been sanctioned. Assuming that this Iran was really transferring oil to Syria. The second point that comes up that the Banias refinery is under sanctions but again the sanctions seems to be with respect to what would be called equipment or other kinds of supplies they do not seem to be directed as specifically or explicitly stated as oil or crude oil that does not seem to be explicitly stated. What is now being drawn as a conclusion is an extension of shall we say English language where it has said other resources. So though oil is not explicitly sanctioned other resources could be financial resources or it could be considered that oil is a resource and therefore oil could be sanctioned. But a sanctioned language is not an explicit language like this. Sanctions normally explicitly mentions what is being sanctioned. So in all of these counts the sanctions regime which the United Kingdom is trying to take as its basis does not seem to sustain what it has done. But it does seem that this is the first time that a EU member has really extended the EU sanctions out to outside the EU boundaries what would be called to extra territorial sanctions because a ship even calling in the harbor or an aircraft passing through an airport say in Europe does its cargo come under the European Union laws does it come under the laws of the company shipping the cargo and the company receiving it these are very open questions in international law and the weight of international law as of now the way I understand it is that it really is extra territorial to cease cargoes which are not under both sides which are not banned and which could be under sanctions of a country through which it is transiting so it does seem that it has a number of legal issues but as we know international courts are not particularly shall be sensitive to Iran's needs and therefore it could be even if it's a case of piracy or extra legal shall be say action that the United Kingdom has taken it could still be years before this this issue is legally resolved. And moving on to the more recent incident where Britain and US have claimed that British commercial vessel was attempted to be captured by Iran now again there is some confusion of the narrative here as well because there are different statements being given by everyone Britain is saying that there were three Iranian boats that attempted to impede the path of their commercial vessel British heritage while US is saying that there were five Iranian boats that tried to capture it and Iran Iran is saying that there was no confrontation whatsoever and another thing to be noted is that this vessel turned off its AI signal which is the automatic identification system signal for 24 hours while it was in water so there is a lot of confusion about what happened so can you tell us more about that. Well the AI signal first it was switched off when it was passing through the states of Hormuz and as you know that is the most narrow part of this whole path so why would it turn off its signal in what would be presumably the most crowded part of the sea through which a number of vessels are passing I think there is a three kilometer passageway which is considered as transit waters though it still falls under the territorial waters of on one side of Iran and the other side I think is a Oman so if we look at that this seems to be very strange why a vessel would turn off its AI signal particularly because this is what other vessels use to avoid collision so why would that do that is a question that we haven't received any satisfactory answer I think there is enough independent evidence not just Iranians to say that the AI signal was turned off and this is very mysterious if you remember the drone which was brought down over Iranian waters and it does see because Iranian waters and also turned off its automatic signaling system and therefore it was also not generating any signal at the part of the trajectory where it was entering Iranian waters so these are all what shall we say provocative measures which invite certain actions and it does see therefore the Iranian argument that they never really did anything but if they have a strange ship without a signal traversing that water they would probably be interested in knowing what it is and they would be tracking using their radar and other on-sea shore devices and therefore they would have an interest in it so it's quite possible they did follow the ship or they did approach the ship but that would have been understandable given this history the second part of it is there was a British warship just following it now why should a British airship the British war vessel be following this ship is also not very clear so there is evidence to show that this is not shall we say usual behavior and this tanker which was which is the vessel in question that tanker was also empty so was this an attempt for the British to entice the Iranians to retaliate against the tanker Caesar and create the in Gibraltar and because the Iranians have said that they will retaliate against the British and they could seize a tanker was that an attempt to entice them into a seizing of their ship just is just it was just an accident in which all this happened was the British only trying to provoke the Iranians but not more than that we do not know but as I said in this whole scenario we have three versions as you said the American version which said they're trying to seize the ship the British version which was saying they're trying to impede the ship and the Iranian version which said they did none of the two okay so in this it does appear that the Iranian version is not really very surprising and it does seem to be the more natural of the you know natural understanding of the event and in any case if there was an attempt to impede or capture the ship there will more visual evidence both from the cameras of both the naval warship Montrose I think which was the what the British were were using and also of the tanker presumably so none of this has been given nor has been any shall we say satellite imagery being provided as you know these are the most scanned areas in the world today and obviously there are spy satellites the spy satellites today gave you a resolution of 1 meter okay and even commercial satellite imagery is of 1 meter so I fail to understand that if such a serious incident has happened why it it would not have more supporting evidence and it's also very strange whenever we have evidence which is required to show that either Russians or Iranians are guilty we get very fuzzy poor imagery where it comes to say looking at Russian aircraft in Syria looking at other things we get crystal clear images okay so this imagery which is rather partial to certain kinds of views and resolution when it is general but the minute it comes to a specific image then it suddenly becomes very hazy is also very very mysterious to all of us so probably finally why do you think all of this is happening and you think that now considering all of these circumstances and events there is a possibility of a serious tanker war happening as we have seen in the past between Iran and Iraq well that is the big threat hanging you know hanging over the world we have discussed is enough number of times that if it really becomes shall we say shooting war or a reputation of the tanker war then there is a there is a possibility that Iran may be able to stop all oil shipments in the states of Horvos it's also clear that they are not going to be willingly submit themselves to strangulation which is what the US is doing so their answer could very well be the marine shipping that is taking place through that through Persian Gulf and the states of Horvos so I think that is a real possibility you know the bigger problem that I have is how a warlike scenario can develop not as a part of a thought out policy but as a simple accident you know the first world war started as a simple accident both sides did not want war at that point so what was a simple assassination of the arc duke herdinant in that case finally led to a first world war so these kind of calibrated shall we say provocations as the united kingdom has done on these two occasions appear certainly in the case of grace one the tanker which it seized in Gibraltar all of this is potential to rapidly spin out of control so my fear is not that it will start by intent but it may start by accident simply misreading what one side is doing and responding in a way that then automatically triggers a much larger conflagration I think that is the real threat in the region and this is not only with respect to tankers it is also with respect to drones overflight aircraft and other provocations that may take place so I think that is the much more serious shall we say consideration that we have to give and there are other players in this who could also actually turn rogue or already are rogue in this sense it could be any of the Arab states like United Arab Emirates of Saudis whom we decide to provoke Iran to war by doing an action in which Iran has to respond in a particular way it could be Houthis who are actually at war against the Saudis because Saudis have attacked Yemen and are trying to crush the Houthis over there they have arms they have old arms and they have new arms and they are capable of also launching attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf so I think also attacking Saudi assets inside Saudi Arabia as they have it a number of times it's possible that Iranian answer asymmetrical war if what that's what Iran wants to do is to supply them with better weapons they have the ability and the will to go to war against Saudi Arabia anyway because they are at war so I think all of this is the bigger threat and unfortunately the United States policies and the fact that European Union and the rest of the world is not intervening that this these are violations of international law and the United States embargoes on Iran are illegal and we have to respond by saying yes these are illegal we will not accept US sanctions and countries like India and China also have a role because they are the largest consumer of Iran oil and there's a huge impact economically that will come on them if they accept Iran sanctions which they have done that they have India has now stopped buying oil from Iran after May these are huge issues that the world has to address and it is not just simply a matter of you know UK versus Iran US versus Iran but this is a global issue and that is the biggest fear we have so thanks for joining us today and thank you for watching Newsclick