Iraq’s oil ministry said on Sunday it has no connection with an oil tanker seized by Iran in the Gulf for smuggling fuel, Iraqi News Agency reported.
“The ministry does not export diesel to the international market,” the ministry said in a statement.
Iran had said earlier that the tanker sized by its elite forces in the Gulf for allegedly smuggling fuel was an Iraqi ship, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Iraq’s relevant authorities are working to gather information about the seized vessel, the oil ministry statement added.
Two Iraqi port officials said initial information obtained show that the seized “small ship” is owned by a private shipping company which is owned by an Iraqi private trader.
The vessel was intercepted near Iran’s Farsi Island in the Gulf, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said. The elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has a navy base on Farsi Island which is located north of the Strait of Hormuz.
“The IRGC’s naval forces have seized a foreign oil tanker in the Persian Gulf that was smuggling fuel for some Arab countries,” the Guards commander Ramezan Zirahi told state TV.
Tensions have risen between Iran and the West since last year when the United States pulled out of an international agreement which curbed the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program in return for an easing of economic sanctions on Iran.
