A South Korean oil tanker held for months by Iran amid a dispute over billions of dollars seized by Seoul was freed and early yesterday sailed away, just hours ahead of talks between Tehran and world powers over its tattered nuclear deal.
MarineTraffic.com data showed that the MT Hankuk Chemi leaving Bandar Abbas in the early morning hours.
The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Iran released the tanker and its captain after seizing the vessel in January.
Photo: AFP
The Hankuk Chemi left an Iranian port at around 6am local time after completing an administrative process, the ministry said.
Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 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,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Khatibzadeh as saying.
The ship’s owner, DM Shipping Co of Busan, South Korea, could not be immediately reached for comment.
The development came as Iran and world powers were set to resume negotiations in Vienna on Friday to break the standoff over US sanctions against Iran and Iranian breaches of the nuclear agreement.
The 2015 nuclear accord, which then-US president Donald Trump abandoned three years later, offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
The Hankuk Chemi had been traveling from a petrochemicals facility in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates when armed Islamic Revolutionary Guard forces stormed the vessel in January and forced the ship to change course and travel to Iran.
Iran had said that the ship was polluting the waters in the crucial Strait of Hormuz, but the seizure was widely seen as an attempt to pressure Seoul to release billions of dollars in Iranian assets tied up in South Korean banks amid heavy US sanctions on Iran.
Iran released the 20-member crew in February, but continued to detain the ship and its captain while demanding that South Korea unlock frozen Iranian assets.
The ministry did not acknowledge the fund dispute when announcing the ship’s release, with Khatibzadeh saying only that the captain and tanker had a clean record in the region.
A South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, speaking on condition of anonymity under regulations, said that Seoul’s willingness to resolve the issue of Iranian assets tied up in South Korea “possibly had a positive influence” in Iran’s decision to release the vessel.
Iran had acknowledged South Korea’s attempts to resolve the dispute as it became clear the issue was “not just about South Korea’s ability and efforts alone” and was “intertwined” with negotiations over the return to Tehran’s foundering nuclear deal, the official said.
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