US warns Chinese ships over carrying Iranian oil shipments

The Trump-led US administration has issued a warning to Chinese shipping companies in relation to them allegedly switching off their transponders to conceal Iranian oil shipments that are in direct violation of the sanctions imposed by the United States of America.

"Highly irresponsible behaviour"

While talking to an international media outlet, an official who did not wish to be named stated that regular messages are being sent to the respective shipping companies that talk about how they should not be violating the terms. In addition to this, he stated that the messages also talked about how such a practice to turn off the transponders is highly irresponsible and dangerous. 

China is the sole country buying Iranian oil after Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Iran's main oil export. This happened due to Trump acting tough with Iran in order to put a complete stop to Iran's oil sales.

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A restriction on Iran's nuclear ambitions

The sanctions imposed by the US aimed to put a restriction on Iran's nuclear ambitions, ballistic missile program and impact in Syria, Iraq and other countries. Its oil exports have declined to under 400,000 barrels for each day from about 2.5 million barrels.

The US imposed sanctions on five Chinese people and two Chinese COSCO Shipping Corp subsidiaries, stating that they shipped Iranian unrefined fuel, completely disregarding the sanctions imposed on them. 

In their defense, a COSCO shipping tanker codenamed Dalian stated that not even a single one of the ships they owned, had turned off their transponders or stopped transmitting signals. In addition to this, they stated that Dalian will always abide by the set rules.

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The International Maritime Organization

The International Maritime Organization requires ships to utilize transponders for security and to maintain transparency. Crew members on board are allowed to turn off their transponders if there is a maritime emergency such as a pirate problem but it is often noticed that ships turn off their transponders to hide their location if they are involved in illegal activities.

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A meeting without any pre-set conditions

According to reports, Donald Trump wants to meet with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, without any conditions to analyze if there is any hope of easing the tensions between both the countries. In addition to this, the US stated that it was going to deploy 3000 soldiers to Saudi Arabia to strengthen defenses after the Aramco oil facilities whose blame was largely put on Iran.

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(With inputs from agencies)