Iran seizes South Korean ship, begins uranium enrichment

AP | Dubai

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Iran began enriching uranium on Monday to levels unseen since its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and also seized a South Korean-flagged tanker near the crucial Strait of Hormuz, a double-barreled challenge to the West that further raised Mideast tensions.

Both decisions appeared aimed at increasing Tehran’s leverage in the waning days in office for President Donald Trump, whose unilateral withdrawal from the atomic accord in 2018 began a series of escalating incidents.

Increasing enrichment at its underground Fordo facility puts Tehran a technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent while also pressuring President-elect Joe Biden to quickly negotiate. Iran’s seizure of the MT Hankuk Chemi comes as a South Korean diplomat was due to travel to Tehran to discuss the release of billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen in Seoul.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif seemed to acknowledge Tehran’s interest in leveraging the situation in a tweet about its nuclear enrichment.

“Our measures are fully reversible upon FULL compliance by ALL,” he wrote.

At Fordo, Iranian nuclear scientists under the watch of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors loaded centrifuges with over 130 kilograms (285 pounds) of low-enriched uranium to be spun up to 20 per cent, said Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s permanent representative to the UN atomic agency.

Iranian state television quoted government spokesman Ali Rabiei as saying that President Hassan Rouhani had given the order to begin the production. It came after its parliament passed a bill, later approved by a constitutional watchdog, aimed at increasing enrichment to pressure Europe into providing sanctions relief.

The US State Department criticised Iran’s move as a “clear attempt to increase its campaign of nuclear extortion.”

Iran’s decision to begin enriching to 20 per cent purity a decade ago nearly triggered an Israeli strike targeting its nuclear facilities, tensions that only abated with the 2015 atomic deal, which saw Iran limit its enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

A resumption of 20 per cent enrichment could see that brinksmanship return. Already, a November attack that Tehran blames on Israel killed an Iranian scientist who founded the country’s military nuclear programme two decades earlier.

From Israel, which has its own undeclared nuclear weapons programme, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticised Iran’s enrichment decision, saying it “cannot be explained in any way other than the continuation of realising its goal to develop a military nuclear programme”.

Meanwhile, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard seized the MT Hankuk Chemi, with photos later released showing its vessels alongside the tanker. Satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed the tanker off the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas on Monday.

The ship had been travelling from a petrochemicals facility in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the UAE. The vessel carries a chemical shipment including methanol, according to data-analysis firm Refinitiv.

Iran said it seized the vessel over it allegedly polluting the Arabian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

Calls to the ship’s listed owner, DM Shipping Co. Ltd. of Busan, South Korea, were not answered after business hours on Monday. The South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted an anonymous company official denying the Iranian claim that the ship polluted the water.

The captain “asked why we have to go and be examined and did not get any answer,” Yonhap quoted the official as saying.

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 demanded the ship’s release, saying in a statement that its crew was safe. The crew included sailors from Indonesia, Myanmar, South Korea and Vietnam, according to the Guard. South Korea’s Defence Ministry said it also was sending its anti-piracy unit near the Strait of Hormuz, which is a 4,400-ton-class destroyer with about 300 troops.

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