{"id":94203,"date":"2021-04-10T05:58:04","date_gmt":"2021-04-10T10:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=94203"},"modified":"2021-04-10T05:58:04","modified_gmt":"2021-04-10T10:58:04","slug":"iran-frees-south-korean-ship-it-held-amid-funds-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/04\/10\/iran-frees-south-korean-ship-it-held-amid-funds-dispute\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Frees South Korean Ship it Held Amid Funds Dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"VOA \u2014 DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – A South Korean oil tanker held for months by Iran amid a dispute over billions of dollars seized by Seoul was freed and sailed away early Friday, just hours ahead of further talks between Tehran and world powers over its tattered nuclear deal.<\/p>\n

MarineTraffic.com data showed the MT Hankuk Chemi<\/em> leaving Bandar Abbas in the early morning hours.<\/p>\n

South Korea\u2019s Foreign Ministry said Iran released the tanker and its captain after seizing the vessel in January. The ministry says the Hankuk Chemi<\/em> left an Iranian port at around 6 a.m. local time after completing an administrative process.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Saeed Khatibzadeh, later confirmed that Iran had released the vessel.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the request of the owner and the Korean government, the order to release the ship was issued by the prosecutor,\u201d Khatibzadeh was quoted as saying by the state-run IRNA news agency.<\/p>\n

The ship\u2019s owner, DM Shipping Co. Ltd. of Busan, South Korea, could not be immediately reached for comment.<\/p>\n

The Hankuk Chemi <\/em>had been traveling from a petrochemicals facility in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates when armed Revolutionary Guard troops stormed the vessel in January and forced the ship to change course and travel to Iran.<\/p>\n

Iran had accused the MT Hankuk Chemi <\/em>of polluting the waters in the crucial Strait of Hormuz. But the seizure was widely seen as an attempt to pressure Seoul to release billions of dollars in Iranian assets tied up in South Korean banks amid heavy American sanctions on Iran. Iran released the 20-member crew in February but continued to detain the ship and its captain while demanding that South Korea unlock frozen Iranian assets.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry did not acknowledge the fund dispute when announcing the ship\u2019s release, with Khatibzadeh saying only that the captain and tanker had a clean record in the region.<\/p>\n

But an official from South Korea\u2019s Foreign Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity under regulations, said Seoul\u2019s willingness to resolve the issue of Iranian assets tied up in South Korea \u201cpossibly had a positive influence\u201d in Iran\u2019s decision to release the vessel.<\/p>\n

The official said Iran had acknowledged South Korea\u2019s attempts to resolve the dispute as it became clear the issue was \u201cnot just about South Korea\u2019s ability and efforts alone\u201d and was \u201cintertwined\u201d with negotiations over the return to Tehran\u2019s foundering nuclear deal.<\/p>\n

Unfreezing the funds involves the consent of various countries including the U.S., which in 2018 imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran\u2019s oil and banking sectors. The official said South Korea has been closely communicating with other countries over the frozen Iranian assets.<\/p>\n

In January, the U.N. said Iran topped a list of countries owing money to the world body with a minimum bill of over $16 million. If unpaid, Iran could lose its voting rights as required under the U.N. Charter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re expecting to make a considerable progress in terms of paying the U.N. dues,\u201d an unnamed South Korean Foreign Ministry official was quoted by the country\u2019s Yonhap news agency. \u201cWe have also exported some $30 million worth of medical equipment since we resumed the humanitarian trade with Iran last April.\u201d<\/p>\n

The development came as Iran and world powers were set to resume negotiations in Vienna on Friday to break the standoff over U.S. sanctions against Iran and Iranian breaches of the nuclear agreement. The 2015 nuclear accord, which then-President Donald Trump abandoned three years later, offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – A South Korean oil tanker held for months by Iran amid a dispute over billions of dollars seized by Seoul was freed and sailed away early Friday, just hours ahead of further talks between Tehran and world powers over its tattered nuclear deal. MarineTraffic.com data showed the MT […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94204,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94203","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\/94203","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=94203"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94206,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94203\/revisions\/94206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}