‘Mr Picardo, 17 million Iranians know who you are’

- In candid comments, CM recalls Grace 1 incident in 2019

Chief Minister Fabian Picardo has described how, at the height of the international crisis following the seizure in Gibraltar of an Iranian tanker in the summer of 2019, a senior Iranian diplomat in London told him during a face-to-face meeting: “Mr Picardo, 17 million Iranians know who you are.”

The exchange happened in London on July 17 that year, when the Chief Minister and Foreign Office officials met with the Iranian deputy ambassador to the UK to try and resolve the stand-off over the Grace 1 supertanker.

The Grace 1 had been detained off the coast of Gibraltar on July 4, 2019, after it was suspected of carrying a cargo of Iranian crude oil destined for a Syrian refinery, violating EU sanctions.

It was boarded by officers of the Royal Gibraltar Police supported by Royal Marines, sparking a six-week standoff at a time of heightened tension between Iran and the west.

Mr Picardo’s candid recollection of the meeting were included in ‘Into the Grey Zone’, a Sky News podcast that explores how countries use tactics against each other that sit “below the threshold of war” but are potentially dangerous if ignored.

"I must tell you, it wasn't pleasant to sit across from the deputy ambassador in London and be told, as we were trying to resolve this, straight in the eye: 'Mr Picardo, 17 million Iranians know who you are'," the Chief Minister told Sky News’ Foreign Editor, Deborah Haynes, in the podcast.

"To which my response was, 'well, 32,000 Gibraltarians are looking carefully at everything that I do and I must ensure that I act in keeping with Gibraltar law at all times'."

Asked what he made of the “threat”, Mr Picardo replied: “I don't think that he was implying that I was very popular in Tehran, put it that way.”

At the time, the meeting was described in public statements by the Gibraltar Government as “constructive and positive”.

Gibraltar maintained throughout the Grace 1 saga that it had acted in accordance with the law to uphold EU sanctions against Syria after the ship entered British Gibraltar territorial waters for stores.

In seizing the tanker, Gibraltar had the full support of the UK Government. But it placed Gibraltar at the centre of a major, potentially-explosive international row.

“I remember very vividly when we were informed of what was happening, [that] there was a tanker coming in our direction [and] it was loaded with oil that was subject to sanctions,” Mr Picardo said.

“I don’t think you make good decisions if you allow yourself to become nervous about making them.”

“The only way to make good decisions is to be dispassionate about them and to be objective about the decision that you're going to make, and not be nervous about what the consequences are.”

“If you've thought things through sufficiently and if you've done a careful analysis of what you're going to do, why you're going to do it and how you're going to do it, that is the best antidote to nervousness.”

The UK and Gibraltar insisted throughout that the Grace 1 was stopped because of its destination and not because of the Iranian origin of its cargo.

EU sanctions prohibit the direct or indirect supply of any economic resources including crude oil to Syria.

But two weeks after the Grace 1 was boarded – and a day after Mr Picardo’s meeting in London - Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized a British tanker, the Stena Impero, near the Strait of Hormuz.

The UK saw that as a tit-for-tat move and said there was no parallel between the “lawful” detention of the Grace 1 in British waters and Iran’s “unlawful” decision to capture the Stena Impero in international waters.

But Iran’s seizure of the Stena Impero dramatically raised the stakes, with both tankers now pawns in a complex diplomatic wrangle.

“It was obviously concerning, because the Stena Impero was crewed by individuals who should not have been put at risk,” Mr Picardo said.

The Grace 1 was finally released on August 14 after Iran provided formal diplomatic assurances it would sail to another destination other than Syria.

Weeks later, however, the ship is believed to have discharged its 2.1m barrels of oil in a Syrian port.

On the podcast, Mr Picardo was quizzed about how it had felt for Gibraltar to be at the centre of such a major international row with such high stakes.

“The fact that the actions being played out in our waters or in our closer strategic area of operation might somehow have a global consequence is nothing new,” he said.

“In our history, we have always had that reality make us more relevant perhaps than our size might suggest.”

The episode of the podcast that includes a section on the Grace 1 can be heard here.