Tehran - sIran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday said the Islamic republic has permitted the crew of a seized South Korean tanker to leave the country as part of a “humanitarian move”.
“In a humanitarian move by Iran, the crew of the South Korean tanker accused of polluting the environment of the Persian Gulf were allowed to leave the country,” ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a statement.
The permission for them to leave was granted upon “the request of the South Korean government and (with) the cooperation of the judiciary in Iran”, he added.
He did not specify whether the crew have already left.
The case of the tanker and its captain were still being reviewed, he added, without elaborating.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized the Hankuk Chemi and arrested its multinational crew of 20 near the strategic Strait of Hormuz on January 4, alleging it had polluted the area’s waters.
The move came as Tehran urged Seoul to released billions of dollars of Iranian assets frozen in South Korea as part of US sanctions.
Former US president Donald Trump in 2018 withdrew Washington from a landmark nuclear agreement with world powers and then reimposed and reinforced crippling sanctions on Iran.
According to government spokesman Ali Rabiei, Iran has $7 billion of funds blocked in Seoul.
Iran has on various occasions denied the seizure and the funds are linked.
The incident was the first seizure of a major vessel by the Iranian navy in more than a year.
In July 2019, the Guards seized the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in the sensitive Strait of Hormuz for allegedly ramming a fishing boat. They released it two months later.
At the time it was widely seen as a tit-for-tat 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.