South Korea in talks to free ship seized in Iran
ARMED Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops stormed a South Korean tanker and forced the ship to change course and travel to Iran, the vessel’s owner said yesterday.
It was the latest maritime seizure by Tehran, amid heightened tensions with the West over the nation’s nuclear programme.
Monday’s military raid on the MT Hankuk Chemi was at odds with Iranian explanations that they stopped the vessel for polluting the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, it appeared the Islamic Republic sought to increase its leverage over Seoul ahead of negotiations over billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen in South Korean banks amid a US pressure campaign targeting Iran.
Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei offered Tehran’s bluntest acknowledgement yet of a link with the frozen assets, saying yesterday: “If anybody is to be called a hostage taker, it is the South Korean government that has taken our more than seven billion dollars hostage under a futile pretext.”
On Monday, Iran also began enriching uranium up to 20%, a small technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%, at its Fordow underground facility. That move appeared to put pressure on the United States in the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration, which unilaterally withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers, and it came ahead of the inauguration of president-elect Joe Biden, who has said he would be willing to re-enter the accord.
An official at DM Shipping, of Busan in South Korea, said its vessel had been travelling from Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates when Iranian forces reached the ship and said they would board it. Initially, Iranian forces said they wanted to run an unspecified check on the ship, the official said.
As the vessel’s captain spoke to company security officials in South Korea, armed Iranian troops stormed the tanker as an Iranian helicopter flew overhead, the official said. The troops demanded the captain sail the tanker into Iranian waters over an unspecified investigation and refused to explain themselves, the official added.
The shipping company has since been unable to reach the captain, the official revealed. Security cameras installed on the ship that initially relayed footage on the scene on the deck to the company are now turned off, the official added.
After the company lost contact with the captain, the company received an anti-piracy security alert notice, suggesting the captain activated an onboard warning system, the official said.
In past months, Iran has sought to escalate pressure on South Korea to unlock some £5 billion in frozen assets from oil sales earned before the Trump administration tightened sanctions on the country’s oil exports. South Korea’s foreign ministry said it plans to send a delegation of officials to Iran for talks on securing the early release of the ship and its crew members.