Officials tell AP that Iran seized Vietnamese oil tanker

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DUBAI – Iran seized a Vietnamese-flagged lipid tanker successful the Gulf of Oman past period and inactive holds the vessel, 2 U.S. officials told The Associated Press connected Wednesday, revealing the latest provocation successful Mideast waters arsenic tensions escalate betwixt Iran and the United States implicit Tehran's atomic program.

Iran's almighty paramilitary Revolutionary Guard troops took power of the MV Southys, a vas that analysts fishy of trying to transportation sanctioned Iranian crude lipid to Asia, connected Oct. 24 astatine gunpoint. U.S. forces had monitored the seizure, but yet didn't instrumentality enactment arsenic the vas sailed into Iranian waters.

Iran celebrated its seizure of the vas successful melodramatic footage aired connected authorities television, the time earlier the 42nd day of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy successful Tehran.

Officials astatine the Vietnamese Embassy successful Washington did not instantly respond to a petition for comment. Ship-tracking information analyzed by the AP from MarineTraffic.com showed the vas inactive disconnected Iran's confederate larboard of Bandar Abbas connected Tuesday. A outer photograph from Planet Labs Inc. besides showed the vas disconnected Bandar Abbas successful caller days.

The 2 U.S. officials spoke connected information of anonymity arsenic the accusation had yet to beryllium made nationalist amid ongoing attempts to restart talks implicit Iran's tattered 2015 atomic woody with satellite powers. Negotiations person stalled successful Vienna since the predetermination of hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi successful June, allowing Iran to property up with its atomic programme and raising alarm successful Western capitals.

The European Union, Iran and the U.S. each said precocious Wednesday that the indirect talks betwixt Tehran and Washington would resume Nov. 29 successful Vienna.

Iran's apical atomic negotiator, Ali Bagheri, said successful a tweet that talks aimed for the removal “unlawful and inhumane" sanctions. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Iran continued to instrumentality “provocative atomic steps" and that “this model of accidental volition not beryllium unfastened forever.”

The officials spoke to AP aft Iranian authorities TV offered a bid of contradictory reports astir a confrontation betwixt the Guard and the U.S. Navy's Mideast-based 5th Fleet. State TV sought to formed the incidental arsenic an enactment of American aggression against Iran successful the Gulf of Oman, with the U.S. Navy detaining a tanker carrying Iranian lipid and the Guard freeing it and bringing it backmost to the Islamic Republic.

Asked astir Iran's assertion of U.S. aggression, Pentagon property caput John Kirby said it was mendacious and that it was Iran that had seized what helium described arsenic a merchant vas successful the Gulf of Oman connected Oct. 24.

“It's a bogus claim,” Kirby said of the Iranian assertion. “The lone seizing that was done was by Iran." He declined to mention the nationality of the vas that was seized, saying it was up to that state to sermon it.

Kirby said Iran's boarding and seizing of the vas “constituted a blatant usurpation of planetary instrumentality that undermines state of navigation and the escaped travel of commerce.”

Tehran besides did not supply the ship’s name, oregon different details, nor immoderate mentation of wherefore the Navy mightiness people it. Iran’s ngo to the United Nations did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

Iranian officials heralded the ship's impoundment arsenic a heroic act, with Raisi lauding the Revolutionary Guard connected Twitter. The country's lipid minister, Javad Owji, thanked the Guard for “rescuing the Iranian lipid tanker from American pirates."

State TV released footage showing an Iranian surveillance drone monitoring a hulking reddish tanker successful the Gulf of Oman. Heavily equipped Iranian commandos past rappelled onto the vessel from a chopper arsenic tiny speedboats surrounded the vas and an Iranian catamaran vessel patrolled the waters.

The video appeared to amusement Iranian Guard troops pointing uncovered deck-mounted instrumentality guns astatine the USS The Sullivans, an Arleigh Burke-class guided rocket destroyer. Photos released by the U.S. subject amusement The Sullivans precocious successful the Arabian Sea adjacent the Gulf of Oman.

The presumption and constitution of the Sothys' unit wasn't instantly known. A shipping database showed the vessel's past registered proprietor arsenic OPEC Petrol Transportation Co., a steadfast with a Hanoi address. A telephone fig for the institution could not instantly beryllium found.

However, the Southys had been connected the radar of United Against a Nuclear Iran, a New York-based advocacy radical agelong suspicious of the Islamic Republic. In a missive dated Oct. 11 addressed to the Vietnam Maritime Administration, the radical said its investigation of outer photos showed the Southy received a ship-to-ship transportation of lipid successful June from an lipid tanker called the Oman Pride.

The U.S. Treasury identified the Oman Pride successful August arsenic being utilized to transport Iranian lipid arsenic portion of a smuggling strategy to enrich the Guard's expeditionary Quds Force. That Iranian lipid ends up being sold into East Asia, the Treasury alleged, without identifying a circumstantial country.

Iran's seizure of the Southys would beryllium the latest successful a drawstring of hijackings and explosions to roil the Gulf of Oman, which sits adjacent the Strait of Hormuz, the constrictive rima of the Persian Gulf done which a 5th of each traded lipid passes.

The U.S. Navy blamed Iran for a bid of limpet excavation attacks connected vessels that damaged tankers successful 2019, arsenic good arsenic for a fatal drone onslaught connected an Israeli-linked lipid tanker that killed 2 European unit members earlier this year. Just a fewer months ago, Iranian hijackers stormed and concisely captured a Panama-flagged asphalt tanker disconnected the United Arab Emirates.

Tehran denies carrying retired the attacks, but a wider shadiness warfare betwixt Iran and the West has played retired successful the region's volatile waters since then-President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from Iran’s atomic woody successful 2018 and imposed crushing sanctions connected the country.

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Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre successful Dubai, Amir Vahdat successful Tehran, Iran, and Robert Burns and Matthew Lee successful Washington contributed to this report.

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