Thursday 7 May 2015

Maersk Tigris: Iran 'releases' seized cargo ship

File photographs show the Maersk TigrisThe Maersk Tigris was seized in one of world's busiest oil shipping lanes (file image)
Iran has released a container ship it seized in the Strait of Hormuz last week, state media report.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham was quoted by the Isna news agency as saying the Maersk Tigris had "left Iranian territorial waters".
But the ship's operator Rickmers Shipmanagement said it had received "no official word on the ship's release".
The Marshall Islands-flagged vessel and its crew of 24 were intercepted by Iranian patrol boats on the 28 April.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said last week that it had been detained because of a long-running legal dispute.
The Danish shipping company Maersk, which charters the vessel, had been ordered by an Iranian court to pay damages to a private firm, he explained.
Map showing Strait of Hormuz and position of MV Maersk TigrisIt is not clear if the dispute has been settled, although an Iranian official was quoted on Wednesday as saying that "possibly the issue will be resolved in a day or two".
The seizure of the ship in one of the world's major shipping lanes threatened to turn into an international incident.
The US sent the destroyer USS Farragut to the area to monitor the situation.
Maersk said its ship was in an international shipping lane when it was detained, but Tehran insisted it had been in Iranian waters.

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