![The British government is expected to announce its next steps in a speech to parliament on Monday [Hasan Shirvani/Mizan via AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/7/22/96d77c400cc24f31938f59c9d4b861b4_18.jpg)
The United Kingdom has called on Iran to release a British-flagged tanker and its crew immediately, describing the seizure of the Stena Impero oil tanker by the Iranian forces as illegal.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commandos rappelled from helicopters and seized the tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday in apparent retaliation for the British capture of an Iranian tanker two weeks earlier.
“The ship was seized under false and illegal pretences and the Iranians should release it and its crew immediately,” British Prime Minister Theresa May‘s spokesman told reporters on Monday.
“We do not seek confrontation with Iran but it is unacceptable and highly escalatory to seize a ship going about legitimate business through internationally recognised shipping lanes.”
May was chairing a meeting of the UK’s COBR emergency response committee on Monday to discuss the Gulf crisis.
Footage obtained by Reuters news agency from an Iranian news agency on Sunday showed the British tanker docked in an Iranian port – with Iran‘s flag hoisted atop.
The British government is expected to announce its next steps in parliament on Monday.
But experts on the region say there are few obvious steps London can take at a time when the United States has already imposed the maximum possible economic sanctions, banning all Iranian oil exports worldwide.
Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee, reporting from London, said the British government was in “a very difficult position”.
“They don’t want to back what the Americans want, which is to take part in this multination coalition of warships [in the Strait]. But they don’t have enough warships of their own to protect their oil tankers there either,” he said.
Global News 
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