HANOI: Vietnam was seeking more information on Thursday about a Vietnamese oil tanker that was seized at gunpoint last month by Iranian soldiers in the Gulf of Oman, while vowing to ensure the safety and humane treatment of the ship’s crew members.
Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard troops on Oct. 24 took control of the MV Southys, a vessel that analysts suspect of trying to transfer sanctioned Iranian crude oil to Asia. US forces had monitored the seizure but ultimately did not take action as the vessel sailed into Iranian waters.
The episode was the latest provocation in Mideast waters as tensions escalate between Iran and the US over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Vietnamese officials “continue to closely follow the developments and work closely with Iranian authorities to resolve this issue in accordance with the law and enact necessary measures to safeguard the rights and interests of Vietnamese nationals,” Pham Thu Hang, deputy spokesperson in Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Thursday.
The captain of the MV Southys told the Vietnamese Embassy in Iran that all 26 crew members were being treated well and were in “normal health,” Hang told reporters at a scheduled briefing.
Iran celebrated its capture of the vessel in dramatic footage aired on state television Wednesday, the day before the 42nd anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran.
Ship-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press from MarineTraffic.com showed the vessel still off Iran’s southern port of Bandar Abbas on Tuesday. A satellite photo from Planet Labs Inc. also showed the vessel off Bandar Abbas in recent days.
Vietnam seeks information from Iran about seized oil tanker
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Vietnam seeks information from Iran about seized oil tanker
- The vessel’s seizure is the latest provocation in Mideast waters as tensions escalate between Iran and the US over Tehran’s nuclear program
Syrian leader to meet Putin, Russia seeks deal on military bases
- Russia’s continued sheltering of Assad and his wife since their ouster remains a thorny issue
MOSCOW: Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa will meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, as the Kremlin seeks to secure the future of its military bases in the country.
Putin and Sharaa struck a conciliatory tone at their previous meeting in October, their first since Sharaa’s rebel forces toppled Moscow-ally Bashar Assad in 2024.
But Russia’s continued sheltering of Assad and his wife since their ouster remains a thorny issue. Sharaa has repeatedly pushed Russia for their extradition.
Sharaa, meanwhile, has embraced US President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday praised the Syrian leader as “highly respected” and said things were “working out very well.”
Putin, whose influence in the Middle East has waned since Assad’s ouster, is seeking to maintain Russia’s military footprint in the region.
Russia withdrew its forces from the Qamishli airport in Kurdish-held northeast Syria earlier this week, leaving it with only the Hmeimim air base and Tartus naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast — its only military outposts outside the former Soviet Union.
“A discussion is planned on the status of bilateral relations and prospects for developing them in various fields, as well as the current situation in the Middle East,” the Kremlin said of the upcoming meeting in a statement on Tuesday.
Russia was a key ally of Assad during the bloody 14-year Syrian civil war, launching air strikes on rebel-held areas of Syria controlled by Sharaa’s Islamist forces.
The toppling of Assad dealt a major blow to Russia’s influence in the region and laid bare the limits of Moscow’s military reach amid the Ukraine war.
The United States, which cheered Assad’s demise, has fostered ever-warmer ties with Sharaa — even as Damascus launched a recent offensive against Kurdish forces long backed by the West.
Despite Trump’s public praise, both the United States and Europe have expressed concern that the offensive in Syria’s northeast could precipitate the return of Islamic State forces held in Kurdish-held jails.
