"What Really Happened in the Persian Gulf on April 28, 2015?" Topic

"A 65,000 ton, Danish-owned, Singapore-chartered, container ship, en route to the United Arab Emirates from Saudi Arabia, manned mostly by Eastern European and Asian sailors, is intercepted, boarded, and confiscated by the Iranian navy, prompting a U.S. destroyer to investigate.*

That wasn't an anecdote from Tom Friedman's next book on globalization–it's a rough description of what took place on Tuesday, April 28, in the strategically important sea lanes of the Strait of Hormuz.

Allow me to get into the details:

The shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz have long been highlighted as a potential flashpoint amid the simmering geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran. Its waters are of particular geostrategic significance given that over a third of the world's petroleum traded by sea passes through the region. Iran has repeatedly emphasized its dominance over the waters, threatening to blockade the strait in a time of crisis. Today, we saw an acute manifestation of Iran's audacity when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) seized and escorted the Marshall Islands-flagged MV Maersk Tigris, a shipping vessel belonging to Denmark's A.P. Moller–Maersk Group and chartered by Singapore-based Rickmers Shipmanagement, toward the Iranian port at Bandar Abbas. The incident sparked a response by U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT), which ordered the USS Farragut, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that was 60 miles from the point of the Tigris' interception, to respond to the vessel's distress signal. The incident took place as Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif led a delegation to New York City for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference at the United Nations, meeting with Western diplomats on the sidelines to discuss the ongoing P5+1 talks over his country's nuclear program…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

The truth is out there! … But we'll never hear it.

Dan

Or we'll never believe it.

This is from Lloyd's List:

"No official statement has yet been issued by Iran. However Iran's state news agency IRNA quoted the managing director of Iran's Ports and Maritime Organisation, Mohammed Saeidnejad, as saying that the vessel had been detained based on a court ruling which ordered the confiscation of Maersk's assets.

The report cites a legal complaint made by an unnamed private Iranian firm which led to Maersk being indicted by the Tehran Provincial Court last March.

Maersk Tigris, deployed in Maersk's ME3 Black Sea-Persian Gulf service. Its 24-strong crew are mostly East European and Asian.

While the Marshall Islands is a sovereign nation, the US has full authority and responsibility for security and defence under the terms of the most recent agreement that entered into force in 2004.

Pentagon spokesman Col Steve Warren said that Maersk Tigris was inside Iranian territorial waters at the time of the seizure, however he pointed out that it was within international shipping lanes and the principle of innocent passage would have applied."

And this from a Reuters feed:

"IRANIAN EMBASSY IN DENMARK SAYS MAERSK TIGRIS VESSEL WILL BE RELEASED ONCE MAERSK SETTLES ITS DEBTS"

Nothing mysterious. Sounds like a commercial dispute.

Though confiscating the whole ship and cargo isn't necessarily legal, given that said cargo may not actually be owned by Maersk.

It's like confiscating a FedEx plane. FedEx owns the plane and (maybe) the cargo containers, but the individual packages inside aren't owned by FedEx.

Remember when the Elliott Capital hedge fund had the Argentine navy vessel Libertad detained over unpaid sovereign debt?

The owners of cargo are "Oh, well" victims, according to the courts. They can sometimes go to their insurers or sue the carrier.

Holding the ship for an unpaid debt (or judgments) is standard and legal. Now, having the seizure occur at sea is unusual, but the ship was in Iranian territorial waters. Generally, you'd see a seizure happen at pierside when the local sheriff deputy boards and serves the papers directly.

And emckinney is right; the owners of the cargo are left in the lurch.

Iran taking more hostages, like they've been doing since 1979.

"Iran taking more hostages, like they've been doing since 1979"

Get real. Maersk had a judgement against them and Iranians carried it out. Not EVERYTHING is some dark conspiracy

"the Iranian waters in question are covered by the international right of free passage. Suspect the issue is more tied to other world events than it is to who was where in what waters."

Still Iranian waters. And Maersk still had the judgment in place from Feb. As for larger issues in play; possibly, but that's beyond the immediate mess.

Terrement – that article is so incomplete in that it completely ignores the legal issue between Iran and the ships operator that the authors are incompetent or deliberately misleading or both.

"Has a decent article."

Breitbart… No wonder. Shot through with errors and outright misrepresentations. Makes me wonder if the author even tried a rudimentary Google search. This kind of idiot hit piece just inflames the matter.

Thank you Emckinney for the reminder – here is a link I found interesting about it link

New development …

TMP link

Dan

Coastal2 – it is quite possible that the hit piece intention was just that – something like "you furnish the pictures and I will furnish the war"

And with the US government's latest idiot reaction, we might just get the pictures to go with the war….

All over 10 lost containers of drilling equipment…. God's teeth…