SEOUL (AP) – Iranian Revolutionary Guard armed forces stormed a South Korean tanker, forcing the ship to change course and travel to Iran, the ship’s owner said Tuesday, the latest maritime seizure by Tehran amid elevated tensions with the West over its nuclear program.
The military raid on MT Hankuk Chemi on Monday was at odds with Iranian statements that they had stopped the ship for contamination of the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, it seemed that the Islamic Republic wanted to increase its power over Seoul ahead of negotiating billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen in South Korean banks amid a US campaign of pressure against Iran.
Iran also started enriching uranium to 20% on Monday, a small technical step away from a weapon quality level of 90%, in the underground Fordo facility. That move seemed aimed at putting pressure on the US in the closing days of President Donald Trump’s administration, which unilaterally withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers, and ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who said that he would be willing to re-enter the accord.
An official at DM Shipping Co. Ltd. from Busan, South Korea, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists, gave details of the Hankuk Chemi seizure. The ship was en route from Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates when Iranian forces reached the ship and said they would board.
Initially, Iranian forces said they wanted to conduct an unspecified check on the ship, the official said. While the captain of the ship in South Korea spoke to company security officials, armed Iranian forces stormed the tanker as an Iranian helicopter flew over, the official said. The troops demanded that the captain sail the tanker into Iranian waters after an unspecified investigation and refused to explain themselves, the official added.
The company has not been able to reach the captain since then, the official said. Security cameras installed on the ship that initially relayed images of the scene on the deck to the company have now been disabled, the official said.
After the company lost contact with the captain, the company received a security warning against piracy, suggesting that the captain had activated an onboard warning system, the official said. It remains unclear whether the ship attempted to enlist outside help.
The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet routinely patrols the area along with an American-led coalition that guards the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world’s oil flows. A separate European-led effort is also active there.
The official denied that the ship had polluted the waters.
In recent months, Iran has been trying to increase pressure on South Korea to release about $ 7 billion in frozen assets from the oil sales earned before the Trump administration tightened sanctions on the country’s oil exports.
The chief of Iran’s central bank recently announced that the country wanted to use money trapped in a South Korean bank to purchase coronavirus vaccines through COVAX, an international program designed to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to participating countries.
The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded the release of the ship, saying in a statement that the crew was safe. According to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the crew consisted of sailors from Indonesia, Myanmar, South Korea and Vietnam. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it would send its anti-piracy unit to the Strait of Hormuz – a 4,400-ton destroyer with about 300 troops.
The US State Department called for the tanker’s immediate release and accused Iran of threatening “navigation rights and freedoms” in the Persian Gulf in order to “extort the international community to ease sanctioning pressures.”
Last year, Iran similarly seized a British-flagged oil tanker and detained it for months after one of its tankers was detained off Gibraltar.
The latest incidents coincide with the anniversary of the US drone attack that killed Guard General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad last January. Iran responded by launching ballistic missiles on US bases in Iraq, injuring dozens of US troops. Tehran also accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane that same night, killing all 176 people on board.
As the anniversary approached and fears of possible Iranian retaliation grew, the US sent B-52 bombers over the region and ordered a nuclear-powered submarine into the Persian Gulf.
Acting United States Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller said late on Sunday that he had changed his mind about sending the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz home from the Middle East and instead keeping the ship in service. He cited Iranian threats against Trump and other US government officials as the reason for the reshuffle, without elaborating.
Last week, sailors discovered a sea snail mine trapped 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 mine’s placement, although it comes after similar attacks near the Strait of Hormuz in 2019 that the US Navy blamed on Iran. Tehran denied involvement.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre in Dubai; Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel; and Robert Burns and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.