Iran on Friday released a South Korean ship and its captain detained since January after South Korea promised to try to secure the release of Iranian funds frozen in South Korean banks under US sanctions, a South Korean official said.
Iran seized the chemical tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and accused it of polluting the waters with chemicals.
The Hankuk Chemi was travelling from a petrochemicals complex in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates when armed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps troops stormed the vessel in January and forced the ship to change course and travel to Iran.
The issue triggered a diplomatic dispute after Iran demanded that South Korea release $7 billion in funds frozen in South Korean banks under US sanctions.
Iran in February agreed to free all the ship's 20 crew members except for the captain, after a South Korean vice foreign minister visited Tehran.
A South Korean foreign ministry official said both sides had agreed that the ship and the funds were not related issues and that South Korea promised to help to get the money released.
"We have expressed our firm willingness to resolve the fund issue," the official said.
The South Korean ministry said the ship left Iran after completing administrative procedures. It made no mention of the demand for the release of funds.
"The captain and sailors are in good health," the ministry said.
South Korea said the vessel did not cause any pollution. The ministry official said Iran dropped a plan to pursue criminal charges against the shipping company.
Iran denied allegations that the seizure of the tanker and its crew constituted hostage-taking, saying it was South Korea that was holding Iranian funds hostage.
The freezing of the funds is linked to US sanctions that Washington reimposed on Tehran in 2018 after president Donald Trump withdrew from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Under the Joe Biden administration, the US and Iran have begun indirect talks over a return to the accord.
The US recently agreed to allow Iran to use the funds for non-military purposes and it has spent some on coronavirus vaccines secured via the global Covax initiative, the ministry official said, without giving a precise amount.
The Hankuk Chemi incident was the first seizure of a major vessel by Iran's naval forces in more than a year.
In July 2019, the IRGC seized the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz for allegedly ramming a fishing boat. They released it two months later.
At the time it was widely seen as a retaliatory move after authorities in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar detained an Iranian tanker and later released it, despite US objections.
Tehran denied the two cases were related.
The Guards seized at least six other ships in 2019 over alleged fuel smuggling.
The Book of Collateral Damage
Sinan Antoon
(Yale University Press)
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
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Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Key findings
- Over a period of seven years, a team of scientists analysed dietary data from 50,000 North American adults.
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- People who ate breakfast experienced a relative decrease in their BMI compared with “breakfast-skippers”.
- Those who turned the eating day on its head to make breakfast the biggest meal of the day, did even better.
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