UK sends mediator to Iran to seek release of seized tanker

Britain has sent a mediator to Iran to discuss the release of a British-flagged tanker seized and impounded by Tehran last week, a senior Iranian official said on Wednesday.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized the Stena Impero on Friday in the Gulf's strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The move came two weeks after British authorities seized an Iranian tanker off its overseas territory of Gibraltar on suspicion of breaching EU sanctions against Syria against a backdrop of brinkmanship between Washington and Tehran.

"A country that at one time appointed ministers and lawyers in Iran has reached a point where they send a mediator and plead for their ship to be freed," Mohammadi-Golpayegani, the head of the Supreme Leader's office, said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news site

No other details of the British meditator's trip were provided.

Iran has impounded the Stena Impero at its port of Bandar Abbas for allegedly breaking "international maritime rules".

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Tuesday warned Britain's next prime minister Boris Johnson that it will "protect" waters of the oil-rich Gulf, amid a standoff between the two countries over the seizure of tankers.

"Iran does not seek confrontation. But we have 1500 miles of Persian Gulf coastline. These are our waters & we will protect them."

The unfolding crisis with Iran will be, along with Brexit, one of the most pressing tasks facing Johnson as he takes power.

Since the US began reimposing sanctions on Iran, tensions have mounted with drones shot down and tankers mysteriously attacked in sensitive Gulf waters.

At the height of the crisis, US President Donald Trump called off air strikes against Iran at the last minute in June after the Islamic republic downed a US drone.