Dubai — British maritime security firm Vanguard Tech said Tuesday that Iranian gunboats approached a U.S.-flagged tanker, threatening to board the ship, in the Strait of Hormuz before continuing on its way under military escort. Incident se događa usred napetosti and only a few days before the expected negotiations.

The Stena Imperative was approached by three pairs of small armed vessels belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz, approximately 16 nautical miles north of the coast of Oman, the company said.

The gunboats radioed the tanker, ordering the captain “to stop the engines and prepare to board,” but the ship increased speed and maintained its course, the company added, stressing that it never entered Iranian territorial waters.

The US-flagged tanker was still en route to its destination in Bahrain on Tuesday afternoon and was due to arrive at the port of Sitrah on February 5, according to information from the MarineTraffic website.

Britain’s Maritime Safety Agency, UKMTO, reported earlier on the incident, without specifying the nationality of the ship or the boats that approached it, saying only that it had been “called on VHF by a number of small armed vessels” but had ignored requests to stop and “continue on the planned route”.

“The authorities are conducting an investigation,” the UKMTO said in a statement, warning all ships in the Strait of Hormuz “to proceed with caution and report any suspicious activity.”

The Strait of Hormuz is a key passage for the global transport of oil and liquefied natural gas, and has been the scene of several incidents in the past due to tensions between Iran and the West.

Iran’s Fars news agency, which is closely linked to the Revolutionary Guard, quoted unnamed government officials on Tuesday as denying the Vanguard Tech report, claiming the ship was intercepted after entering Iranian territorial waters without permission.

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard official threatened last week to block passage through the strait in the event of a US attack, and the Guard also held military exercises over the weekend in the strategic waterway.

if he could launch a new military strike against Iran over the country’s brutal crackdown on recent protests or if it refuses to negotiate a new deal on its nuclear program.

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Mr. Trump said that in those conversations, he “told them two things. No. 1, no nuclear weapons. And No. 2, stop killing the protesters. They’re killing them by the thousands.”

At least 10 US warships – including an aircraft carrier and at least five destroyers – have headed for Iran’s coastal waters since last week, a deployment that Mr Trump called an “armada”, which he said he hoped would not need to be used.