On 19 April 2022, the Iranian-flagged tanker Lana (formerly Pegas), with 19 Russian crew members on board, was seized by Greek authorities near the southern island of Evia; this sparked an international incident. [1] [2] Greek authorities had connected Russian sanctions imposed by the European Union after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February to the tanker seizure in Greece. [2]
On 25 May, Greece said that it would give the US 700,000 barrels of Iranian crude oil from a Russian-flagged vessel it had confiscated. Iran called the decision "international robbery". [3] On May 27, Iran seized two Greek tankers, the Delta Poseidon and the Prudent Warrior, shortly after saying it would take "punitive action" against Greece. [1] At least nine Greek nationals and one Cypriot were aboard the two tankers when they were seized. [4]
Iran has seized oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz when ships carrying Iranian oil were halted or confiscated. [5] After the UK stopped an Iranian tanker in Gibraltar in 2019, Iran took control of a British vessel. [1] [5] In a dispute over South Korea's decision to freeze its oil income in response to U.S. economic sanctions, Iran seized a South Korean tanker in 2020. Iranian naval troops have temporarily taken control of a Vietnamese tanker and a tanker flying the flag of Panama. [5]
In April 2022, port officials in Evia's Karystos district in Greece confiscated the Russian-flagged ship Pegas on orders from the Anti-Money Laundering Authority. [6] [7] Pegas had been carrying Iranian oil and was originally traveling through international waters in the Aegean, but sustained damage en route to the Peloponnese. [6] The ship was seized because it belonged to the Russian Promsvyazbank, which was under EU sanctions. [6] The Anti-Money Laundering Authority freed the Pegas three days later because it had been transferred to Transmorflot, a business not on the EU sanctions list, on 17 March. [6]
On 20 April, the US Department of Justice asked for the cargo of Pegas to be frozen because its sale would fund terrorism. The US request was based on sanctions imposed on Iran when the Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018. The EU and its member states, however, were still committed. [6] Reuters reported that it was unclear if the cargo was seized because it was Iranian oil or because the tanker was subject to sanctions because of its connections to Russia. The US has separate sanctions for Iran and Russia. [1]
In May, Iranian forces captured two Greek tankers, held the crew hostage in the Persian Gulf, and led the ships into Iranian waters. The action was taken after Greece said that it would turn over to the US 700,000 barrels of Iranian crude oil confiscated from a vessel flying the Russian flag. [4]
On 8 June, a Greek court overturned a previous ruling allowing the country to take a portion of the cargo aboard the tanker flying the Iranian flag near the Greek coast. [8] According to a Greek port-police source, the seizure was lifted on 27 June and the Lana (formerly Pegas) [9] was allowed to resume its voyage. [10] According to sources familiar with the situation and Iran's embassy in Athens, an Iranian-flagged tanker was reloading oil seized by the US seized in April on 12 August after Greek authorities' approval of the cargo transfer. [11]
The seizure of the two Greek-flagged vessels was denounced by the United States. [12] The foreign ministries of Germany and France denounced the seizure of the Greek tankers, urging Tehran to free the vessels and their crews. The statements were called "biased" and "inappropriate intervention" by the Iranian administration. [4] The Iranian seizure has been described as a threat to the safety of shipping and commerce by Greek Minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy [13] Ioannis Plakiotakis. [14]
Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei said, "They steal Iranian oil off the Greek coast, then our brave men who don't fear death respond and seized the enemy's oil tanker". [15] According to Sina Azodi, an Iran specialist at the Atlantic Council in Washington, the major goal was to make it clear to the West that any more seizures of oil ships would face a similar response.
Greece ultimately agreed to all Iranian demands, including a pledge to never again seize or harass any tankers transporting Iranian oil, as well as to provide a to be determined amount of financial compensation for broken sales contracts attributed to the earlier seized Iranian oil. Nevertheless, Iran continued to hold both the Greek ships and their crew for two additional months even after these demands were satisfied. It was not until nine weeks later, in August, that Teheran finally released its captives upon a suddenly added third demand, an official apology to Iran by the Greek government, was issued by Athens. As a result, the universal consensus was that Iran scored nothing less than a complete diplomatic and strategic victory at the expense of Greece. [5]
The Strait of Hormuz is a strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world's most strategically important choke points. On the north coast lies Iran, and on the south coast lies the Musandam peninsula, shared by the United Arab Emirates and the Musandam Governorate, an exclave of Oman. The strait is about 90 nautical miles (167 km) long, with a width varying from about 52 nmi (96 km) to 21 nmi (39 km).
USS McFaul (DDG-74) is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer in the United States Navy. She is named for U.S. Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Donald L. McFaul. This ship is the 24th destroyer of her class. USS McFaul was the 11th ship of this class to be built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and construction began on 26 January 1996. She was launched on 18 January 1997 and was christened on 12 April 1997. On 25 April 1998 she had her commissioning ceremony at the Garden City Terminal in Savannah, Georgia. As of July 2020 the ship is part of Destroyer Squadron 26 based out of Naval Station Norfolk.
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Iran–United Kingdom relations are the bilateral relations between the United Kingdom and Iran. Iran, which was called Persia by the West before 1935, has had political relations with England since the late Ilkhanate period when King Edward I of England sent Geoffrey of Langley to the Ilkhanid court to seek an alliance.
Greece and Iran have maintained diplomatic ties ever since they were formally established between the Kingdom of Greece and the Sublime State of Iran on 19 November 1902. The Greek and Iranian governments are represented in each other's countries through embassies in Tehran and Athens, respectively. Relations were warm under Iran's Pahlavi dynasty, but quickly deteriorated after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when the new Islamic Republic government began mutually antagonizing the United States and the Western Bloc, of which Greece was a part during the Cold War.
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On 12 May 2019, four commercial ships were damaged off Fujairah's coast in the Gulf of Oman. The ships included two Saudi Arabian registered oil tankers, a Norwegian registered oil tanker, and an Emirati registered bunkering ship. The ships were anchored on the United Arab Emirates territorial waters for bunkering in Port of Fujairah. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates reported that the ships had been subject to a "sabotage attack". The United Arab Emirates launched a joint investigation probe with United States and France. The initial investigation assessment determined that 5-to-10-foot holes near or below all the ships' waterlines were probably caused by explosive charges.
On 13 June 2019, two oil tankers were attacked near the Strait of Hormuz while they transited the Gulf of Oman. The Kokuka Courageous, flagged in Panama and operated by a company based in Japan, and Front Altair, flagged in Marshall Islands and operated by a company based in Norway, were attacked, allegedly with limpet mines or flying objects, sustaining fire damage. American and Iranian military personnel responded and rescued crew members. The attacks took place a month after the similar May 2019 Gulf of Oman incident and on the same day, Iranian Supreme Leader Iran Ali Khamenei met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe in Iran. Abe was acting as an intermediary between US President Donald Trump and Khamenei.
The 2019 Kerch Strait liquified gas tanker fire was a major incident that occurred on 21 January 2019 when two ships, Kandy and Maestro, caught fire while transferring liquefied gas from one vessel to another in the Kerch Strait. The incident subsequently killed fourteen crewmembers and six went missing, including Libyan, Turkish, and Indian sailors, while twelve men jumped into the water and were rescued by the Russian Navy. Kandy was carrying a crew of seventeen, while Maestro was manned by fifteen crewmembers. At the time of the incident, both ships were carrying 4,500 tonnes of fuel. The ship-to-ship fuel transfer resulted a fire explosion and spread across both ships; Tanzanian-flagged Turkish ships' Maestro and Kandy. The blaze lasted more than four days.
The seizure of the Hankuk Chemi refers to the temporary seizure of the South Korean oil tanker Hankuk Chemi (한국케미) by the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Persian Gulf on 4 January 2021. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (NEDSA) stated that the tanker was seized because of "environmental and chemical pollution concerns." The tanker's South Korean owner denied any pollution had occurred. The ship was released on 9 April 2021 after South Korea agreed to unfreeze $1 billion in Iranian assets held in South Korean banks.
On 29 July 2021, the oil tanker MT Mercer Street, travelling from Tanzania to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with no cargo on board, was attacked off the coast of Oman. The ship is flagged in Liberia. It is Japanese-owned and managed by Israeli-owned Zodiac Maritime, an international ship management company headquartered in London and led by billionaire shipping magnate Eyal Ofer, who is an Israeli citizen.
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Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stated on 25 October 2021 that they had thwarted an attempt by the United States to capture and detain a tanker carrying Iranian oil in the gulf of Oman by carrying out a heliborne operation and directing the ship back to Iran's territorial waters. The Pentagon rejected the Iranian statement and said that Iranian forces had seized a Vietnamese-flagged oil tanker in October.
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