Iranian Revolutionary Guards on Monday (January 4) seized a South Korean-flagged tanker in Gulf waters. According to their official Sepah News website, the ship departed from the port of Jubail, Saudi Arabia, and was seized for “Violation of marine environment laws”. Sepah News also reports the arrest of the crew, made up of South Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Burmese nationals, without further details.
The ship, baptized Hankuk-Chemi, transports, according to the Revolutionary Guards, 7,200 tons of “Petroleum chemicals”. The seizure took place at the request of the maritime organization of the province of Hormozgan and on the order of the provincial prosecutor.
A photo published by Sepah News shows three speedboats and a patrol approaching the tanker. The site does not specify where the vessel was seized or to what location it was transferred.
South Korea has sent an anti-piracy naval unit to the Gulf. South Korean Ministry of Defense “Immediately dispatched the Cheonghae in waters near the Strait of Hormuz after receiving a report of the seizure [du] commercial vessel [Stena-Impero] by Iran “.
Several seizures in 2019
In July 2019, the Revolutionary Guards seized the tanker Stena-Impero, flying the British flag, in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, before releasing it two months later.
They had seized at least six other ships the same year in a context of heightened tensions between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, in particular around the international agreement on the Iranian nuclear of 2015, unilaterally denounced by Donald Trump in May 2018.
