TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran is demanding the British navy release an oil tanker seized last week off Gibraltar, accusing London of playing a "dangerous game."

Friday's comments from the Iranian Foreign Ministry come a day after police in Gibraltar, a British overseas territory on the southern tip of Spain, said they arrested the captain and chief officer of the supertanker suspected of breaching European Union sanctions by carrying a shipment of Iranian crude oil to Syria.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi told Iranian state news agency IRNA that "the legal pretexts for the capture are not valid ... the release of the tanker is in all countries' interest."

The tanker's interception on July 4 has stoked already high tensions in the region.