DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – A South Korean oil tanker detained by Iran for months amid a multibillion-dollar dispute seized by Seoul, was released early Friday and sailed away, hours before further talks between Tehran and world powers shatter nuclear agreement.
The data from MarineTraffic.com showed that MT Hankuk left Chemi Bandar Abbas in the early morning hours. By Friday afternoon, it was on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates and passed safely through the Strait of Hormuz.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Iran had released the tanker and its captain after seizing the vessel in January. The ministry says the Hankuk Chemi left an Iranian port around 6am local time after completing an administrative process.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh later confirmed that Iran had released the vessel.
“At the request of the owner and the Korean government, the order to release the ship was issued by the prosecutor,” Khatibzadeh was quoted as saying by the state-run IRNA news agency.
The ship’s owner, DM Shipping Co. Ltd., from Busan, South Korea, could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Hankuk Chemi was traveling from a petrochemical plant in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates when armed forces of the revolutionary guard stormed the vessel in January and forced the ship to change course and head for Iran. travel.
Iran has accused MT Hankuk Chemi of polluting the waters in the important Strait of Hormuz. But the seizure is widely seen as an attempt to pressure Seoul to release about $ 7 billion in Iranian assets tied up in South Korean banks amid heavy US sanctions against Iran. Iran released its 20-member crew in February, but detained the ship and its captain while demanding that South Korea unlock frozen Iranian assets.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry did not acknowledge the fund dispute when it announced the release of the ship, and Khatibzadeh only said that the captain and tanker had a clean record in the region.
But an official from the South Korean Foreign Ministry, who spoke on the grounds of anonymity regulations, said Seoul’s willingness to resolve the issue of Iranian assets tied up in South Korea could be a possibility. had a positive impact on Iran’s decision to release the vessel.
The official said Iran acknowledged South Korea’s efforts to resolve the dispute, as it became clear that the issue “is not just about South Korea’s capability and efforts alone” and that it ” was intertwined “with the negotiations on the return to Tehran’s founding nuclear deal.
The freezing of the funds involves the consent of various countries, including the US, which in 2018 imposed comprehensive sanctions against the oil and banking sector in Iran. The official said South Korea had now communicated with other countries about the frozen Iranian assets.
In January, the UN said Iran was at the top of a list of countries that owe money to the world body with a minimum bill of more than $ 16 million. If not paid, Iran could lose its right to vote under the UN Charter.
“We expect to make significant progress in paying the UN fees,” an unnamed South Korean Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency. “We have also exported about $ 30 million worth of medical equipment since resuming humanitarian trade with Iran last April.”
Iran later announced that it expects South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun to travel to Tehran for a two-day visit beginning Sunday. Yonhap said the trip would be the first visit by a South Korean prime minister to Iran in 44 years – before Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979. Chung had previously visited Iran in August 2017 as the then speaker of the National Assembly.
The development took place when Iran and world powers were to negotiate in Vienna on Friday to break the fight against US sanctions against Iran and Iranian violations of the nuclear deal. The 2015 nuclear deal, which was dropped by then-President Donald Trump three years later, offered Iran sanctions easing in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
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Associated Press authors Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.