DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Iranian state television has acknowledged that Tehran has seized a South Korean-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.
Monday’s report claimed that the MT Hankuk Chemi had been stopped by Iranian authorities over alleged “oil spills” in the Persian Gulf and the strait.
The semi-official Fars news agency said Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval forces seized the ship.
Satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed MT Hankuk Chemi Monday afternoon without explanation in front of Bandar Abbas port. He was on his way from Saudi Arabia to Fujairah in the UAE. The ship’s owners were not immediately available for comment.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Below is AP’s earlier story.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Iran began enriching uranium up to 20% in an underground facility on Monday, a short technical step away from weapons levels, as fears that a South Korean-flagged oil tanker will Tehran was seized in the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
The enrichment announcement at Fordo came at the same time that Western officials said they feared the MT Hankuk Chemi had been seized.
It comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the United States in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s tenure, during which the American leader unilaterally withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers and caused months of escalating incidents between the two countries. .
Iranian state television quoted spokesman Ali Rabiei as saying that President Hassan Rouhani had ordered the move to the Fordo facility.
Iran’s decision to start enriching to 20% a decade ago nearly brought an Israeli attack against its nuclear facilities, tensions that only eased with the 2015 atomic deal. A 20% resumption of enrichment would kill that brinksmanship. can return.
Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018. Since then, a series of escalating incidents have occurred between the two countries.
Iran’s decision comes after parliament passed a bill, later approved by a constitutional watchdog, aimed at walking enrichment to pressure Europe to ease sanctions. It also serves as pressure leading up to the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has said he is ready to rejoin the nuclear deal.
Iran last week informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it intended to take the step. The IAEA said on Monday that “agency inspectors have been monitoring activities” at Fordo and that Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi planned to issue a report to member states of the UN organization later today.
Meanwhile, satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed MT Hankuk Chemi at Bandar Abbas on Monday afternoon, with no explanation of the change in the ship’s path. He was on his way from Saudi Arabia to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.
Calls to South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the listed owner of the vessel, DM Shipping Co. Ltd. from Busan, South Korea, were not answered immediately after office hours on Monday. Iran has not disclosed the location of the ship.
The United Kingdom Marine Trade Operations, an information exchange supervised by the British Royal Navy in the region, recognized an ‘interaction’ between a merchant ship and the Iranian authorities in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, resulting in 20% of all the oil of the world passes away.
As a result, the UKMTO said the merchant vessel was making a “change of course” north in Iran’s territorial waters.
Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, said authorities there were aware and were monitoring the situation.
Ambrey, a British security company, reported the incident as an apparent seizure. Dryad Global, another maritime security company, said the ship’s crew consisted of 23 sailors from Indonesia and Myanmar.
Iran’s announcement coincides with the anniversary of the US drone strike that killed Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad last year. Iran later retaliated in that attack by launching a ballistic missile strike that injured dozens of US 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 US sent B-52 bombers over the region and sent a nuclear-powered submarine into the Persian Gulf.
On Thursday, sailors discovered a limpet mine on a tanker in the Persian Gulf off Iraq near the Iranian border, as it prepared to transfer fuel to another tanker owned by a company traded on the New York Stock Exchange. No one has claimed responsibility for the mining, although it comes after a series of similar attacks in 2019 near the Strait of Hormuz that the US Navy blamed on Iran. Tehran denied involvement.
In November, an Iranian scientist who founded the country’s military nuclear program two decades earlier was killed in an attack that Tehran blames on Israel.
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Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.
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