The Philippines introduced on Wednesday that it had launched all 18 Filipino crew members of an oil tanker seized by Iran within the Gulf of Oman in January.
The Iranian navy boarded the Greek-owned St. Nicholas with 19 crew members on board off the coast of Oman. The solely Greek crew member was launched the next week.
Philippine Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Eduardo de Vega informed AFP that the Iranian authorities has been releasing Filipino crew members in a number of batches since late January after hiring alternative crew members from Russia and different international locations. I began doing it.
“They weren’t hostages… however they weren’t allowed to go away with out replacements,” de Vega stated of the Filipino crew.
The final Filipino crew member returned to Manila final week, he added.
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The Marshall Islands-registered ship was heading to Turkey from Iraq with 145,000 tons of oil on board when it was seized. It is anchored close to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
Iranian state media stated the seizure was in retaliation for the US “theft” of Iranian oil from the identical tanker, then named Suez Rajan.
The Iranian authorities has beforehand responded with retaliatory measures after seizures of cargoes of Iranian crude oil.
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Crippling US sanctions, reimposed after Washington withdrew from the landmark nuclear deal in 2018, have put restrictions on gross sales of Iranian oil and petrochemicals, with the intention of slicing Iran’s power exports. focused.
Manila remains to be looking for the discharge of 17 Filipino hostages taken after Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis seized a ship within the Red Sea in November.
In one other incident, two Filipino crew members had been killed and three others injured in a Houthi missile assault within the Gulf of Aden on March 6.
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The Houthis launched assaults on ships within the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea final November, saying the operations had been aimed toward exhibiting solidarity with Palestinians within the Gaza Strip.
De Vega stated Manila was “inspired by developments such because the UN decision calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.”
“We hope there might be peace within the Middle East and that the Houthis will launch them (Filipino sailors),” he stated.
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