Global Courant 2023-04-29 14:26:00
Neither side has acknowledged whether Iran’s capture of the Turkish-operated fuel tanker was a tit-for-tat action.
Tehran, Iran – Iran and the United States are once again at odds as they have provided conflicting accounts of the events leading up to Tehran’s seizure of an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman.
Iranian state television on Friday showed footage of the country’s naval commandos boarding the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Advantage Sweet in a helicopter operation the day before.
The Turkish-operated Chinese tanker entered the Gulf of Oman after passing through the Strait of Hormuz and was reportedly bound for Houston, Texas carrying Kuwaiti crude for US energy company Chevron Corp.
Iran said the tanker collided with an unknown Iranian vessel hours before the seizure, leaving several crew members overboard and missing and others injured. The tanker then fled, ignoring radio calls for eight hours before being seized under a court order, the Iranian military said.
“We have repeatedly called the ship to stop so that we can conduct a more comprehensive investigation, but there was no cooperation,” Mostafa Tajodini, deputy for operations in Iran’s navy, told state media.
The ship’s manager, a Turkish company called Advantage Tankers, said similar experiences have shown that crew members – all 24 Indians – are not at risk.
The US Navy’s 5th Fleet in the Middle East had said Iran’s actions constituted a violation of international law and called on Tehran to immediately release the tanker.
“Iran’s continued harassment of ships and interference with navigation rights in regional waters pose a threat to maritime security and the global economy,” it said, adding that this was at least the fifth commercial ship seized by Iran in recent years. conquered two years ago.
Tit-for-tat move
On Friday, the Reuters news agency reported that the seizure of the ship was in response to the US confiscation of an oil tanker in a bid to enforce its unilateral sanctions against Tehran.
According to the report, the Iran-linked tanker was the Marshall Islands-flagged Suez Rajan which had a Greek-based manager and was last reported to have been positioned near South Africa before sinking several days prior to the seizure of the Advantage Sweet ship by Iran was seized.
There are precedents for such tit-for-tat moves, with the US attempting to seize a shipment of Iranian oil near Greece last year, prompting Tehran to seize two Greek tankers and detain them for months . The Supreme Court in Greece eventually ordered the cargo returned to Iran and the Greek ships were also released.
Washington imposed its toughest sanctions on Iran yet, including a major focus on hindering Tehran’s oil sales, after former President Donald Trump unilaterally backed out of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
Amid stalled efforts to reinstate the nuclear deal, which restricted Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions, Iran has circumvented embargoes and steadily increased its oil sales.
Twelve US senators on Thursday urged President Joe Biden to remove Treasury Department policy hurdles that have hindered the seizure of more Iranian oil shipments, in a call likely to heighten tensions.
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