DUBAI, UAE (AP) – A South Korean oil tanker detained for months by Iran amid a billion-dollar dispute seized by Seoul was released and left early Friday a few hours before talks between Tehran and the world powers broke nuclear deal.
MarineTraffic.com data showed that MT Hankuk Chemi was leaving Bandar Abbas early in the morning. On Friday afternoon he was on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, having passed safely through the Strait of Hormuz.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Iran released the tanker and its captain after seizing the ship in January. The ministry says Hankuk Chemi left an Iranian port around 6 a.m. local time after completing an administrative process.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh later confirmed that Iran had released the ship.
“At the request of the Korean owner and government, the order to release the ship was issued by the prosecutor,” Khatibzadeh said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
The ship’s owner, DM Shipping Co. Ltd. from Busan, South Korea, could not be contacted immediately for comments.
Hankuk Chemi had been traveling from a petrochemical plant in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, Fujairah, UAE, when Revolutionary Guard armed troops stormed the ship in January and forced the ship to change heading and traveling to Iran.
Iran had accused MT Hankuk Chemi of polluting the waters of the crucial Strait of Hormuz. But the confiscation was widely seen as an attempt to pressure Seoul to release some $ 7 billion in Iranian assets tied to South Korean banks amid heavy U.S. sanctions on Iran. Iran released the 20-member crew in February, but continued to detain the ship and its captain as it demanded that South Korea unblock frozen Iranian goods.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry did not recognize the fund dispute when it announced the release of the ship, and Khatibzadeh said only that the captain and the oil tanker had a clear history in the region.
But a South Korean Foreign Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under the regulations, said Seoul’s willingness to resolve the issue of Iranian assets tied to South Korea “possibly had a “positive influence” on Iran’s decision to release the ship.
The official said Iran had acknowledged South Korea’s attempts to resolve the dispute, as it became clear that the issue “was not just about South Korea’s capacity and efforts” and was “intertwined.” with negotiations on the return to the founding nuclear deal in Tehran.
The thawing of funds involves the consent of several countries, including the United States, which in 2018 imposed heavy sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking sectors. The official said South Korea has been in close communication with other countries about frozen Iranian assets.
In January, the UN said Iran topped a list of countries that owe money to the world body with a minimum bill in excess of $ 16 million. If left unpaid, Iran could lose its voting rights, as required by the UN Charter.
“We hope to make considerable progress in the payment of UN dues,” an unnamed South Korean Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying by the country’s Yonhap news agency. “We have also exported about $ 30 million worth of medical equipment since we resumed humanitarian trade with Iran last April.”
Iran later announced that it hoped South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun would travel to Tehran for a two-day visit starting Sunday. Yonhap said the trip would be the first visit by a South Korean prime minister to Iran in 44 years, before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Chung previously visited Iran in August 2017 as then speaker of the National Assembly.
The development came as Iran and world powers were due to resume negotiations in Vienna on Friday to break the confrontation over U.S. sanctions against Iran and Iran’s breaches of the nuclear deal. The 2015 nuclear deal, which then-President Donald Trump abandoned three years later, offered relief from sanctions on Iran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
___
Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.