An oil tanker named ‘Advantage Sweet’ was seized by the Iran Navy from the Gulf of Oman on Friday. The vessel was headed to the United States and had an all-Indian crew, including three Malayalis. Iran’s state television showed a masked Iranian navy commando team carrying out a helicopter-borne raid to seize the tanker. The vessel’s manager, a Turkish firm called Advantage Tankers, acknowledged that the ship was being escorted to an Iranian port by the Iranian navy based on an international dispute.
According to Tehran, the tanker was seized because it collided with another Iranian vessel. However, the Islamic Republic has not provided any evidence to support this claim. The Iranian authorities have seized other ships in the past as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West.
The US Navy’s 5th Fleet has said that this seizure was at least the fifth commercial vessel taken by Tehran in the last two years. Iran’s continued interference with navigational rights in regional waters is a threat to maritime security and the global economy.
The Turkish firm that manages the vessel said, ‘The safety and welfare of our valued crew members is our No. 1 priority.’ Similar experiences in the past have shown that the crew members of seized vessels are usually unharmed.
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