{"id":91679,"date":"2021-01-05T08:05:43","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T13:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=91679"},"modified":"2021-01-05T08:05:43","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T13:05:43","slug":"auto-draft-412","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/01\/05\/auto-draft-412\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran seizes South Korean-flagged oil tanker"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"DW \u2014 Iranian forces captured the South Korean-flagged chemicals tanker in the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz. Tehran wants US sanction-related funds frozen in South Korean banks released.<\/p>\n

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Revolutionary Guards in speed boats seized the Hankuk Chemi, a tanker carrying ethanol, in the Straits of Hormuz as it was traveling from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates,\u00a0Iranian media outlets reported Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maritime tracking firms said the ship ended up stationary in Iranian territorial waters off Iran’s Bandar Abbas port city.<\/p>\n

Seoul\u2019s foreign ministry called in the Iranian ambassador to South Korea for a meeting and urged the early release of the South Korean-flagged tanker and its crew of 20.<\/p>\n

It was carrying a cargo of more than 7,000 tonnes of ethanol when it was seized on Monday over what Iranian media said were pollution violations.<\/p>\n

South Korea did not immediately comment on Iran’s allegation that the tanker\u00a0had caused “oil pollution” in Gulf waters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the government said it is\u00a0reviewing whether a senior diplomat’s trip to\u00a0Tehran on Sunday will go ahead as planned.<\/p>\n

Tensions over US sanctions<\/h2>\n

Iran has been demanding that South Korean banks release $7 billion (\u20ac5.7 billion) in funds frozen because of US sanctions re-imposed on Iran in 2018 after President Donald Trump withdrew from a 2015 multinational deal to restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The US Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th fleet said authorities they\u00a0were\u00a0aware\u00a0and monitoring the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said the tanker’s crew members, including nationals from South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar were being held in Bandar Abbas.<\/p>\n

The ship seizure coincided with Iran’s announcement that it had begun enriching uranium up to 20%<\/a> at its Fordo underground facility \u2014 short of weapons-grade material.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that his nation would “not allow Iran to manufacture a nuclear weapon.”<\/p>\n

Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DW \u2014 Iranian forces captured the South Korean-flagged chemicals tanker in the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz. Tehran wants US sanction-related funds frozen in South Korean banks released. Revolutionary Guards in speed boats seized the Hankuk Chemi, a tanker carrying ethanol, in the Straits of Hormuz as it was traveling from Saudi Arabia to the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91679"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91682,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91679\/revisions\/91682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}