Though the ship is British-flagged, there are no British nationals among Stena Impero's 23-member crew, which includes a mix of Indians, Filipinos, Russians, and Latvians. India, at least, has begun separate negotiations to secure the release and repatriation of its citizens from the British-flagged ship, as well as from the Riah, another tanker Iran recently seized over allegations of fuel smuggling.

"I ... urge Iran to release the Stena Impero and her crew and observe the rules that safeguard commercial shipping that benefit Iran as much as any other country," Hunt said in his statement to Parliament. "Iran has tried to present this as a tit-for-tat incident following the Government of Gibraltar’s action on 4 July to enforce E.U. [European Union] sanctions by preventing the Iranian chartered tanker Grace 1 from supplying oil to Syria, but there is simply no comparison between Iran’s illegal seizure of a vessel inside a recognized shipping lane where the Stena Impero had every right to be and the enforcement of E.U. sanctions against a tanker that had freely navigated into the waters of a British overseas territory."

U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt outlined the U.K. government's immediate response plan to the Stena Impero's capture in a statement to the country's parliament on July 22, 2019. The IRGC boarded and took control of the tanker, which U.K.-based Northern Marine Management operates and that Swedish shipping company Stena A.B. owns, as it sailed through the Strait of Hormuz on July 19, 2019 . Iran claims that the ship was "violating international maritime rules," but has yet to specify what rules the ship was in breach of or provide any evidence to substantiate this assertion. For weeks, Iranian officials had threatened to seize a British ship in a tit-for-tat retaliatory act over U.K. authorities continuing to impound the Iranian supertanker Grace 1 over sanctions violations.

Three days after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, seized the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz , U.K. authorities have announced plans to safeguard the country's commercial shipping interests in the region, including establishing a new European-led maritime task force. At the same time, the U.K. government has pointedly said that its policies will be separate from those of its U.S. counterparts , exposing a notable rift between the two allies on how to respond to escalating tensions in the region.

After his opening summary of the situation, which he called a "hostile act," Hunt then formally announced that the U.K. Department for Transport had advised all British-flagged ships to avoid Iranian waters and the Strait of Hormuz, something that had been previously reported. He also asked that any British-flagged ships that insisted on making the transit alert U.K. authorities of their decision "to enable us to offer the best protection we can." There are already fears that this may have farther reaching impacts on international trade, especially the price of oil, if operators and owners in other countries follow suit and begin avoiding sailing through the region. Despite the advisories, HMS Duncan, one of the U.K. Royal Navy's Type 45 destroyers, which are some of the service's largest and most capable surface combatants, is rushing to the region to relieve the smaller Type 23 frigate HMS Monstrose and will be on call to escort any British ships in the area. The United Kingdom had also previously announced this swap-out. Montrose has already escorted a number of ships safely through the Strait of Hormuz, but was reportedly an hour away from Stena Impero when the IRGC captured her.

Brian Burnell via Wikimedia HMS Duncan.

Lastly and most importantly, Hunt said that the United Kingdom was working to create a European maritime protection mission to further protect shipping in the region and that HMS Duncan would eventually join that multi-national force. It is not clear if the U.K. government's plan is for this to be a European Union-led mission, given that the United Kingdom is separately working to extricate itself from that political and economic bloc as part of a process commonly known as Brexit. "We will now seek to put together a European-led maritime protection mission to support safe passage of both crew and cargo in this vital region," Hunt said. "The new force will be focused on free navigation, bearing in mind that one-fifth of the world’s oil, a quarter of its liquefied natural gas, and trade worth half a trillion dollars pass through the Strait of Hormuz every year."

Press Association via AP Images Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt arrives at No. 10 Downing Street to attend a meeting on July 22, 2019, that Prime Minister Teresa May had called to discuss the situation regarding the Stena Impero.

Hunt said that he had spoken with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, earlier in the day, and that he had discussed how the U.K. government's proposed European maritime force might complement U.S. military-led efforts in the region. On July 19, 2019, U.S. Central Command had announced the beginning of Operation Sentinel, a proposed multi-national effort with many of the same general objectives as the plan Hunt has now announced. "The responsibility … falls to the United Kingdom to take care of their ships," Pompeo had said on Fox and Friends earlier on July 22, 2019, though it's unclear if this came before or after his call with Hunt. "The United States has a responsibility to do our part, but the world’s got a big role in this too – to keep these sea lanes open."

Department of State US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.