The UN International Maritime Organisation paused its programme to shepherd ships and seafarers through the Strait of Hormuz yesterday after a cargo ship reported a suspected attack, reigniting fears over a preliminary deal to end the Iran war.
The ship said it was hit close to Oman by a projectile, British navy agency UKMTO said, hours after Tehran warned vessels against taking routes that it had not approved.
There was no immediate comment from Iran or the US on the incident. Four sources identified the ship as the Singapore-flagged Ever Lovely.
A security source said it was likely targeted by a drone.
The IMO was helping to get hundreds of stranded ships and thousands of seafarers out of the strait where they had been stranded for months since the start of the war in late February.
It said it had decided “to temporarily pause its implementation in order to reconfirm that the necessary safety guarantees continue to be in place for the ships on our evacuation list and all those in the region,” IMO Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez said in a statement.
The IMO said the ship involved in the suspected attack was not part of its evacuation programme.
The initiative, which was launched on Tuesday, was a voluntary option for ships and their crew to sail out of the Gulf using two routes – one via Iranian waters and the other via Omani waters, with US oversight, the IMO said this week.
Benchmark oil prices rose 1.9 per cent following the reported attack, which analysts said rekindled concerns about how long it could take for Gulf oil flows to resume normal levels.
The Oman incident is likely to refocus attention on the extent of Iran’s future control over the Strait of Hormuz which, before the conflict, handled a fifth of the world’s daily oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.
Before the incident, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that if Iran threatens or blocks ships in the strait, “then we’re going to have a problem.”
Iran, though, has signalled it would continue to assert control over the strait.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said yesterday that safe passage through the strait would only be possible through routes designated by Iran, adding that it would take action against vessels that failed to comply.
&uuid=(email))