South Korean forces reached waters near the Strait of Hormuz, while pressure is mounting on Iran to release a South Korean tanker that it seized along with its crew on Monday.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they took control of the South Korean ship, Hankuk Chemi, and its 20 crew members because it was “polluting the Persian Gulf with chemicals”. The tanker is being held in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.
Choi Young, a destroyer transporting members of the Cheonghae anti-piracy unit, arrived at the strategically important area on Tuesday, while officials in Seoul sought a diplomatic solution to the impasse.
The authorities emphasized that there are no plans to conduct a military operation to free the crew of five South Koreans, 11 Myanmars, two Indonesians and two Vietnamese, according to the Yonhap news agency.
“[The destroyer] it is carrying out missions to ensure the safety of our citizens, ”said Foreign Ministry spokesman Boo Seung-chan on Tuesday.
An unidentified employee told Yonhap: “The issue must be resolved through diplomacy. The unit focuses on the safety of our people who use the waterway after the seizure ”.
The owner of Hankuk Chemi said on Tuesday that Revolutionary Guard troops invaded the ship and forced it to change course and travel to Iran. This report contradicts Iranian claims that the ship had been stopped for polluting the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha did not directly comment on speculation that Tehran had confiscated the ship to pressure Seoul to release billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen in South Korea as part of U.S. sanctions against the regime.
Kang said his priority was “to check the facts and ensure the safety of the crew”.
She added: “We have been trying to find out what happened through the Iranian embassy in South Korea and the South Korean embassy in Iran and we continue to make efforts to resolve the situation.”
There was confusion over plans to send a South Korean officer to Iran this weekend to negotiate the ship’s release.
Iranian state TV quoted a Tehran government official as saying that Deputy Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun should discuss Iran’s demand for $ 7 billion in frozen funds to be released.
However, an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul told Reuters that Choi’s visit “has not been clear so far”.
Last Sunday, the Tehran Times reported that Iran hoped to negotiate a deal to use frozen funds to “negotiate” doses of vaccines against coronavirus and other products.
The Revolutionary Guard said on Monday that Hankuk Chemi, which carried 7,200 tons of ethanol, “was seized by our forces [navy] this morning”.
They added: “This tanker was driven from the port of Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, and was seized due to repeated violations of maritime environmental laws.”