DUBAI: The US yesterday demanded Iran immediately release a vessel it seized in the Gulf and a US military commander in the region said the US would work “aggressively” to ensure free passage of vessels through the vital waterway.
Responding to an announcement by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards that they had seized a foreign ship smuggling fuel, the US State Department insisted Iran had to free the ship and its crew and stop harassing vessels in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran played down the seizure of the ship, which it said was a small vessel that was smuggling oil. “The US strongly condemns the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy’s continued harassment of vessels and interference with safe passage in and around the Strait of Hormuz,” a State Department spokesperson said.
“Iran must cease this illicit activity and release the reportedly seized crew and vessel immediately.”
Iranian state TV aired footage of a vessel called RIAH. The Panamanian-flagged oil tanker MT Riah disappeared off trackers in Iranian territorial waters days ago.
The Guards said the impounded ship was in the area of Larak Island in the Gulf and had 12 foreign crew. Britain said the tanker was not British-flagged.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that shipping companies were hiring unarmed security guards for voyages through the Gulf as an extra safeguard.
Since mid-May, attacks on tankers near Hormuz have unsettled crucial shipping lanes that link Middle Eastern oil producers to markets in Asia, Europe, North America and beyond.
Describing Tehran’s recent nuclear pronouncements as “unacceptable”, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said other parties to the 2015 treaty – in which Iran agreed to restrict nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions – expected Tehran to uphold its side of the accord. The US says it wants to increase pressure on Iran to renegotiate the accord, discuss its ballistic missile programme and modify its behaviour in the Gulf.
President Trump has agreed to allow Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky to hold diplomatic talks with Iran’s top diplomat amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran.
Paul reportedly asked Trump if he could communicate with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on the president’s behalf while the two played a round of golf over the weekend. Zarif is in New York City for a UN conference.
The Kentucky senator, who’s garnered a reputation on Capitol Hill for breaking from many of his GOP colleagues on foreign policy and opposing US military interventions overseas, wants to extend an olive branch to the Iranians.
Some in the Trump administration are reportedly not particularly comfortable with the idea of Paul speaking with Zarif over concerns he’ll derail the maximum pressure campaign that’s typified the president’s approach to US-Iran relations.
Paul has made it clear he would not support a war with Iran without congressional approval.