Iran alleges oil pollution to storm SK tanker

Armed Iranian troops stormed a South Korean tanker and forced the ship to change course and travel to Iran, the vessel's owner said Tuesday, the latest maritime seizure by Tehran amid heightened tensions with the West over its nuclear program.

The military raid on Monday on the MT Hankuk Chemi was at odds with Iranian explanations that they stopped the vessel for polluting the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

Instead, it appeared that Iran was seeking to increase its leverage over Seoul ahead of negotiations over billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen in South Korean banks amid a US pressure campaign targeting Iran.

An Iranian government spokesman, when asked on Tuesday about the seizure, offered Tehran's bluntest acknowledgement yet of a link with the frozen assets.

“If anybody is to be called a hostage taker, it is the South Korean government that has taken our more than $7 billion hostage under a futile pretext,” spokesman Ali Rabiei said.

The vessel had been traveling from Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates when Iranian forces reached the ship and said they would board it, a South Korean shipping official said.Initially, Iranian forces said they wanted to run an unspecified check on the ship, the official said.

As the vessel's captain spoke to company security officials back in South Korea, Iranian Revolutionary Guards stormed the tanker as an Iranian helicopter flew overhead, according to the official.The troops demanded the captain sail the tanker into Iranian waters over an unspecified investigation and refused to explain themselves, the official added.

The company has since been unable to reach the captain.The US Navy's Mideast-based 5th Fleet routinely patrols the area along with an American-led coalition monitoring the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world's oil passes.A separate European-led effort also operates there as well.The shipping official denied the vessel had been polluting the waters.

In past months Iran has sought to escalate pressure on South Korea to unlock some $7 billion in frozen assets from oil sales earned before the Trump administration tightened sanctions on the country’s oil exports.South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it plans to dispatch a delegation of officials to Iran for talks on securing the early release of the ship and its crew members.South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it was sending its anti-piracy unit to near the Strait of Hormuz - a 4,400-ton-class destroyer with about 300 troops.

South Korea’s presidential office said Tuesday it views Iran’s ship seizure “very gravely.”

The US State Department joined South Korea in calling for the tanker’s immediate release, accusing Iran of threatening “navigational rights and freedoms” in the Persian Gulf in order to “extort the international community into relieving the pressure of sanctions.”

Last year, Iran similarly seized a British-flagged oil tanker and held it for months after one of its tankers was held off Gibraltar.

(IMAGE CREDITS:AP)