DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards captured two Greek oil tankers on Friday in helicopter attacks in the Persian Gulf, officials said. The move appears to be revenge for Athens’ help in confiscating U.S. crude oil from an Iranian-flagged tanker in the Mediterranean this week for violating Washington’s crackdown on the Islamic Republic.
The attack marks the first major incident at sea in months, as tensions between Iran and the West remain high over its torn nuclear deal with world powers. As Tehran enriches more uranium, closer to arms levels than ever, fears are growing that negotiators will not find a way back to an agreement that increases the risk of a wider war.
The guard issued a statement announcing the seizures, accusing the tankers of unspecified violations.
The Greek Foreign Ministry said it had made a strong démarche to the Iranian ambassador to Athens over the “forcible capture of two Greek-flagged ships” in the Persian Gulf. “These actions are in fact acts of piracy,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry called for the immediate release of the ships and their crews and said the actions would have “particularly negative consequences” in bilateral relations and in Iran’s relations with the European Union, of which Greece is a member.
A ministry statement said earlier on Friday an Iranian helicopter landed on the Greek-flagged Delta Poseidon in international waters, about 22 nautical miles off Iran’s coast.
“Armed men then took the crew prisoner,” the statement said, adding that there were two Greek citizens among the crew.
“A similar incident was reported on another Greek-flagged ship carrying seven Greek citizens off the coast of Iran,” the ministry said.
A Greek official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the details of the attack with a journalist, identified the second ship as the Prudent Warrior. Her manager, Polembros Shipping in Greece, said earlier that the company was “cooperating with the authorities and making every effort to deal effectively with the situation”.
Greek officials did not identify the nationality of the other crew on board.
Both ships came from the Iraqi oil terminal in Basra, possibly loaded with crude oil, according to tracking data from MarineTraffic.com.
A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence, said the two ships appeared to have approached – but not in – Iranian waters on Friday. After the abduction, they plunged into Iranian waters. The ships also turned off their tracking devices, another red flag, the official said. However, none of them have asked for help or called for help, the official said.
Iran threatened to take “criminal action” earlier Friday over Athens’ involvement in the detention of a U.S. Iranian oil tanker in Greek waters.
Nour News, a website close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, made the threat just as Lloyd’s List reported that it believed two Greek tankers had been captured in the Persian Gulf. Citing anonymous industry sources, Lloyd’s said the two ships were boarded after Iranian military helicopters approached them on Friday afternoon.
The seizures came after Greece helped the United States seize crude oil aboard an Iranian-flagged tanker this week.
A Greek official said on Thursday that the move followed “judicial intervention by US authorities over the ship’s cargo”. The oil was to be “delivered” from the port of Caristos on the island of Evia in the Aegean Sea.
The official, who asked not to be identified to discuss the case, did not provide further details. A spokesman for the Washington Department of Justice and the US Embassy in Athens declined to comment on Thursday.
Friday’s seizure from Iran was the latest in a series of kidnappings and explosions that shook a region that includes the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, through which one-fifth of all traded oil passes.
The US Navy has blamed Iran for a series of mine attacks on ships that damaged tankers in 2019, as well as a fatal drone attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker that killed two European crew members in 2021.
Iranian hijackers also stormed and briefly captured a Panama-flagged asphalt tanker near the United Arab Emirates last year, and briefly detained and detained a Vietnamese tanker in November.
Tehran denies carrying out the attacks, but a wider shadow war between Iran and the West has taken place in the region’s volatile waters. The guard, meanwhile, is building a massive new support ship near the strategic Strait of Hormuz as it seeks to expand its naval presence in waters vital to international energy supplies and beyond, according to satellite images from the Associated Press.
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Pafitis reported from Athens, Greece. Associated Press writer Amir Wahdat of Tehran, Iran, contributed to the report.
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