Iran against exchanging detained ships with UK

"Impossible to advance a quid pro quo or barter exchange of detained UK and Iranian ships as some British media suggest," Hamid Baeidinejad wrote on his Twitter account.

He added: "UK has illegally detained the ship carrying Iranian oil while the British ship is detained for violating some key safety/security regulations in Hormuz Strait."

Earlier, Dominic Raab, the UK Foreign Secretary said there can be no “quid pro quo” to end the standoff.

Without referring to violation of the international regulations by UK government in Gibraltar, Raab preferred to talk about the detained oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, claiming that the issue is not a kind of exchange but it is about international law and mechanism which have been supported.

Meanwhile, Chairman of Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations Kamal Kharrazi elaborated on the July 19 seizure of a British oil tanker in Strait of Hormuz, southern Iran, Kharrazi said Iran did not violate any country's territory during the past 250 years; however, it stands up to any aggressors.

The Navy of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said in a statement on July 19 that it seized of a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz for disregard of the safety standards Iran enforces for its territorial waters in the Persian Gulf.

The statement said that a British oil tanker named 'Stena Impero' was detained in the southern Iranian region at the request of Hormuzgan Province's Ports and Maritime Organization, for not observing International Law of the Sea (ILOS) in the Persian Gulf waterway.

Referring to the July 6 capture of a supertanker carrying Iranian oil by the UK off the coast of Spain based on the baseless accusations, Kharrazi said he hopes Britain would release the tanker and the same would happen to the British vessel in Iran after following legal formalities.

However, the UK should know that such moves will bring nothing to London, Kharrazi stressed.

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