SEOUL (AP) – Armed Iranian troops of the revolutionary guard storm a South Korean tanker and force the ship to change course and travel to Iran, the owner of the vessel said on Tuesday.
The military raid on Monday on the MT Hankuk Chemi was in violation of Iranian statements that they stopped the vessel because they polluted the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, the Islamic Republic appeared to want to increase its leverage over Seoul ahead of the billion-dollar negotiations on Iranian assets frozen in South Korean banks amid a US-led Iranian pressure campaign.
An Iranian government spokesman on Tuesday, when asked about the seizure, gave Tehran’s bluntest recognition of a connection to the frozen assets.
“If anyone is to become a hostage, it is the South Korean government that has taken our hostage worth more than $ 7 billion under a futile pretext,” spokesman Ali Rabiei said.
Iran also began enriching uranium to 20% on Monday, a small technical step away from 90% weapon grade levels, at its underground Fordo plant. This move appears to be putting pressure on the US in the last days of President Donald Trump’s administration, which unilaterally withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.
Later on Tuesday, comments by the head of Iran’s civilian nuclear program suggested that Tehran’s current production of uranium enriched to 20% would not reach the levels needed for a nuclear weapon for more than two years, possibly will give for negotiations under President-elect Joe Biden.
An official of DM Shipping Co. Ltd. of Busan, South Korea, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists, provided details about the seizure of Hankuk Chemi. The vessel was traveling from Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates when Iranian troops reached the ship and said they would board.
Initially, Iranian troops said they wanted to carry out an unspecified check on the ship, the official said. While the captain of the vessel was talking to security officials of the company in South Korea, Iranian armed forces stormed the tanker while an Iranian helicopter was flying overhead, the official said. The troops demanded that the captain sail the tanker after an unspecified investigation into the Iranian waters and refused to explain themselves, the official added.
The official has not been able to reach the captain since, the official said. Security cameras installed on the ship, which originally transmitted footage on the deck to the company, have now been turned off, the official said.
After the company lost contact with the captain, the company received a warning notice against piracy indicating that the captain had activated a warning system on board, the official said. It remains unclear whether the ship is trying to seek outside help.
The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, based in the Middle East, regularly patrols the area along with an American-led coalition that monitors the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world’s oil passes . There is also a separate effort led by Europe.
The official denied that the vessel polluted the waters.
In recent months, Iran has sought to increase pressure on South Korea to unlock some $ 7 billion of frozen assets from oil sales earned before the Trump administration tightened sanctions against the country’s oil exports.
The head of Iran’s central bank recently announced that the country wants to use funds in a South Korean bank to buy coronavirus vaccines through COVAX, an international program designed to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to participating countries. spread.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that it intends to send a delegation of officials to Iran for talks on securing the early release of the ship and its crew. According to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, sailors included sailors from Indonesia, Myanmar, South Korea and Vietnam. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it was sending its anti-piracy unit to the Strait of Hormuz – a 4400-ton destroyer with about 300 troops.
The presidential office of South Korea said on Tuesday that it takes the seizure of the ship on Iran very seriously.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Choi Young-sam said Iranian officials had assured South Korea that the ship’s crew was safe. He said an Iranian-based South Korean diplomat had been sent to the site of the detained ship.
The US State Department joined South Korea in demanding the immediate release of the tanker and accused Iran of threatening ‘navigation rights and freedoms’ in the Persian Gulf to pressure the ‘international community to push for sanctions’. relieved’.
Last year, Iran similarly seized a British flag oil tanker and detained it for months after one of its tankers was kept away from Gibraltar.
Meanwhile, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization in Iran told state television in Tehran that the Islamic Republic’s current production of 20% enriched uranium would amount to about 9 kilograms (20 pounds) per month.
Ali Akbar Salehi’s remarks mean that Iran needs more than two years to require the 240 kilograms (530 pounds) experts to process up to 90% weapons again. Salehi said Iran is also working to install newer, faster centrifuges at its facilities.
The Iranian military also launched a wide-ranging two-day air exercise in the north of the country on Tuesday, state media reported with unmanned aerial vehicles for combat and surveillance, as well as naval drones sent from vessels in the southern waters of Iran. State TV broadcast footage of numerous drones on a runway in the northern province of Semnan near the vast Kavir desert.
Iran has previously conducted exercises with military drones; it regularly releases footage of surveillance drones of American aircraft carriers flying through the Persian Gulf. The drill this week also contains modern ‘suicide drones’ hovering over a battlefield before diving to a target, the TV report reads.
___
Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press authors Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; and Isabel DeBre in Dubai contributed to this report.