DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Iran on Monday began enriching uranium to 20% at an underground plant and seized an oil tanker with the South Korean flag in the essential Strait of Hormuz, easing tensions in the Middle East between Tehran and the country. Wes.
The announcement of enrichment at Fordo took place when fears arose that MT Hankuk Chemi had been seized. Iran later acknowledged the seizure, claiming that “oil pollution” fueled the move. However, Tehran said hours earlier that a South Korean diplomat would travel there to negotiate more than billions of dollars in his assets that are now frozen in Seoul.
The double incident comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the United States in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s tenure, which the US leader unilaterally withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers and months of escalating incidents between the two countries. . .
Iranian state television quoted Ali Rabiei, a spokesman, as saying that President Hassan Rouhani had ordered the move in the Fordo plant.
Iran’s decision to start enriching itself to 20% a decade ago has almost brought an Israeli strike to its core facilities, tensions that only eased with the 2015 nuclear deal. A 20% resumption of enrichment could lead that a rapid art return because the level of purity is only a technical step away from the level of weapon degree of 90%.
Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018. In the time since, there have been a series of escalating incidents between the two countries.
Iran’s decision comes after parliament passed a bill, later approved by a constitutional watchdog, aimed at increasing enrichment to put Europe under pressure to ease sanctions. It also serves as pressure ahead of the inauguration of Elected President Joe Biden, who has said he is ready to re-enter into the nuclear deal.
Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency last week that it intends to take the step. The IAEA said on Monday that “agency inspectors have been monitoring the activities at Fordo” and that its director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, plans to issue a report to UN member states later in the day.
Meanwhile, satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed the MT Hankuk Chemi Monday afternoon outside Bandar Abbas, without any explanation about the change in the vessel. It traveled from Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. According to data analysis firm Refinitiv, the ship was transporting an unknown chemical shipment.
Calls to the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the ship-listed owner, DM Shipping Co. Ltd., of Busan, South Korea, was not immediately answered Monday after business hours. Iran has not acknowledged the location of the vessel.
The British Marine Trade Operations, an exchange of information overseen by the British Royal Navy in the region, acknowledged an ‘interaction’ between a merchant vessel and Iranian authorities in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all the world’s oil passes.
As a result, the UKMTO said the merchant vessel had made a “course change” north into Iran’s territorial waters.
Kmdt. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, said authorities are aware and are monitoring the situation.
Ambrey, a British security firm, reported the incident as an apparent seizure. Dryad Global, another maritime security firm, said the ship’s crew were 23 sailors from Indonesia and Myanmar.
Iran’s announcement coincides with the commemoration of the US drone attack that Genl. Qassem killed Soleimani in Baghdad. That attack later retaliated by launching a ballistic missile attack on Iran, injuring dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq. Tehran also accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane that night, killing all 176 people on board.
As the anniversary approached, the U.S. sent B-52 bombers across the region, sending a nuclear-powered submarine to the Persian Gulf.
Sailors on Thursday discovered a limpet mine on a tanker in the Persian Gulf outside Iraq near the Iranian border as they were ready to transfer fuel to another tanker owned by a company trading on the New York Stock Exchange word. No one has claimed responsibility for the mining, though it comes after a series of similar attacks in 2019 near the Strait of Hormuz that blamed the U.S. Navy on Iran. Tehran denied involvement.
In November, an Iranian scientist who founded the country’s military nuclear program two decades earlier died in an attack blaming Tehran on Israel.
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Associated Press author Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.