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South Korea’s diplomatic effort to free vessel, crew seized by Iran stalls

FORUM Staff

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard detained a South Korean-flagged oil tanker and its crew on January 4, 2021, amid an escalating dispute between the nations over U.S. $7 billion in funds withheld since 2019 due to sanctions that restrict banking transactions with the Iranian regime, according to news reports.

Iran seemed to be attempting to ratchet up its leverage over Seoul before South Korean officials’ planned trip to the region, which was to include a Qatar visit, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

The day Iran seized the ship it also began enriching uranium to 20%, a level only seen before its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, AP said. The move places Tehran a single technical process away from making weapons-grade uranium.

Attempts by South Korean officials to negotiate the release of the crew and tanker had proven “murky” a week after the seizure because of Iran’s insistence that the ship’s alleged oil pollution requires a judicial resolution, dimming Seoul’s hope for a diplomatic one, The Korea Times newspaper reported.

The crew of the 9,797-ton Hankuk Chemi, pictured, includes 20 Sailors from Burma, Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam who remain in custody at the port city of Bandar Abbas near the key Strait of Hormuz, where the ship was seized. Five of the Sailors are South Korean.

South Korean diplomats, including Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun have been working to free the Sailors. Since arriving in Iran on January 10, Choi has met with senior Iranian officials, including his counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and Kamal Kharrazi, head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, The Korea Times reported.

Diplomats from Burma and Iran were meeting in Delhi, India, to negotiate the release of the 11 Burmese Sailors, according to the ISNA news agency.

The United States also demanded the ship’s immediate release.

“The [Iranian] regime continues to threaten navigational rights and freedoms in the Persian Gulf as part of a clear attempt to extort the international community into relieving the pressure of sanctions,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said.

An Iranian government spokesman said the seizure was based on an Iranian court order for “environmental pollution.”

The ship’s Busan-based operator, Taikun Shipping Co., said there were no indications that Iranian officials were investigating potential environmental violations prior to seizing the ship.

South Korea has requested that Iran provide proof of its claim that the ship violated environmental protocols, according to South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Choi Young-sam.

Officials found no environmental violations but a few minor safety issues during its most recent inspection in 2019 at a Chinese port, The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported. 

Araghchi said that South Korea “should refrain from politicizing the issue and fruitless propaganda to allow the legal processes to proceed,” Iran’s state television reported, according to the South China Morning Post newspaper.

Iranian government officials have repeatedly denied that the seizure is tied to Seoul’s hold on proceeds from Iranian oil sales, AP reported. “We are not hostage takers,” Iran’s government spokesman, Ali Rabiee, said the day after the Revolutionary Guards impounded the tanker. “If anyone is a hostage taker, it is the South Korean government,” which has kept Iran’s assets under “vain pretexts,” he said.

Prior to the seizure, the two nations had been working toward establishing a mechanism for Iran to use about U.S. $500,000 of the funds to buy coronavirus vaccines and related medical products and had garnered a special approval for the arrangement from the U.S. Treasury Department, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

 

IMAGE CREDIT: REUTERS

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