Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has seized two Greek oil tankers in a helicopter raid on the Persian Gulf.
Key points:
- The two confiscated tankers had arrived from Iraq’s Basra oil terminal loaded with crude oil
- The action appears to be in retaliation after Greece helped the US seize crude oil from an Iranian-flagged tanker.
- Iranian semi-official Tasnim news agency warns 17 more Greek ships “could be confiscated”
“Revolutionary Guard navy today confiscated two Greek tankers for violations in Gulf waters,” a Guardian statement was quoted as saying by Iran’s state news agency IRNA.
He gave no further details and did not say what the alleged violations of the ships were.
The Greek Foreign Ministry said that a helicopter of the Iranian navy landed a Greek-flagged ship, the Poseidon Delta, sailing in international waters, 22 nautical miles off the Iranian coast, and took as a hostage the crew, including two Greek citizens.
“Then gunmen took the captive crew,” he said.
“A similar incident was reported on another Greek-flagged ship carrying seven Greek nationals off the coast of Iran.”
A Greek officer identified the second ship as the Prudent Warrior.
Its manager, Polembro Shipping in Greece, said earlier that the company was “cooperating with the authorities and making every effort to address the situation effectively”.
Greek officials did not identify the nationalities of the rest of the crew aboard the two ships.
The two ships had arrived from Iraq’s Basra oil terminal loaded with crude oil, according to MarineTraffic.com tracking data.
A U.S. defense official said the two ships appeared to have approached Iranian territorial waters on Friday, but not at all.
After the hijacking, the ships drifted into Iranian waters.
The ships had also turned off their tracking devices, another red flag, the official said.
However, he had not issued a May call or a call for help, the official said.
Greece calls the confiscation of a tanker “piracy”
The action appeared to be in retaliation for Athens’ assistance in seizing crude oil from an Iranian-flagged tanker ship this week in the Mediterranean Sea in violation of Washington’s overwhelming sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
These latest incursions mark the first major incident at sea in months, as tensions remain high between Iran and the West over its torn nuclear deal with world powers.
As Tehran enriches more uranium, closer to gun levels than ever before, concerns are growing that negotiators will not find a way to return to the deal, increasing the risk of a wider war.
The Guard issued a statement announcing the seizures, accusing the tanker trucks of unspecified offenses.
Nour News, a website close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned shortly before that Tehran planned to take “punitive action” on Greece by helping the US seize oil days before the Lana, a tanker of the Iranian flag.
The Greek Foreign Ministry said it had spoken with the Iranian ambassador in Athens about the “violent seizure of two Greek-flagged ships” in the Persian Gulf.
“These acts are tantamount to acts of piracy,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry called for the immediate release of the ships and their crews, and warned that the confiscation would have “especially negative consequences” on bilateral relations and on Iran’s relations with the European Union, of which Greece is a member. .
Threats of new actions by Iran
The oil tanker Pegas was among the five ships designated for US sanctions. (Reuters: Vassilis Triandafyllou / File)
Greek authorities arrested last month the Iranian-flagged Pegasus, with 19 Russian crew on board, off the coast of the southern island of Evia due to European Union sanctions.
The US later confiscated the Iranian oil cargo it had on board and plans to send it to the US on another ship.
The Pegasus were then released.
The Pegasus was one of five ships designated by Washington on February 22 – two days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine – for sanctions against Promsvyazbank, a bank considered critical of Russia’s defense sector.
It was unclear whether the cargo was confiscated because it was Iranian oil or because of sanctions on the tanker for its Russian links.
Iran and Russia face separate US sanctions.
Iran’s confiscation on Friday was the latest in a series of hijackings and explosions that have affected a region that includes the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which one-fifth of everything passes. marketed oil.
The U.S. Navy blames Iran for a series of lax mine attacks on ships that damaged tankers in 2019, as well as a deadly drone attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker that killed two members of the European crew in 2021.
Iranian hijackers also briefly assaulted and captured a Panama-flagged asphalt tanker truck in front of the United Arab Emirates last year, in addition to briefly capturing and stopping a Vietnamese tanker ship in November.
Tehran denies carrying out the attacks, but a wider shadow war between Iran and the West has unfolded in the region’s volatile waters.
Oil seizures have been part of this since 2019, when Iran seized the British-flagged Stena Impero after the United Kingdom arrested an Iranian oil tanker off Gibraltar.
Iran released the tanker months later when London also released the Iranian ship.
Last year, Iran also confiscated and detained a South Korean-flagged tanker ship for months amid a $ 1 billion dispute over Seoul’s frozen assets.
Underlining this threat, the semi-official Iranian news agency Tasnim warned in a tweet: “There are still 17 more Greek ships in the Persian Gulf that could be confiscated.”
Meanwhile, the Guard is building a new massive support ship near the Strait of Hormuz as it tries to expand its naval presence in vital waters for international energy supply and beyond, according to satellite photos obtained by The Associated Press.
ABC / Cables