DUBAI, NEW DELHI: The Indian foreign minister said on Saturday an Iranian naval vessel has docked in India.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the IRIS Lavan is docked in the southern city of Kochi after India granted permission when the vessel reported “having problems” on March 1. News agency Press Trust of India, citing unnamed “government sources,” had earlier reported that the ship has been in Kochi since March 4.
“I think it was the humane thing to do,” Jaishankar said.
The Lavan docked in the southwest Indian port of Kochi on Wednesday.
“A lot of the people on board were young cadets. They have disembarked and are in a nearby facility,” said Jaishkar.
A US submarine sank the Iranian warship IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka on Wednesday.
The ships had previously taken part in naval exercises hosted by India, but Jaishankar said they got “caught on the wrong side of events” once the war began.
Sri Lanka will treat Iranian sailors rescued from a torpedoed frigate according to international law, a minister said, following reports Washington was pressuring Colombo to not repatriate them.
Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath told a conference in New Delhi that Sri Lanka was caring for 32 sailors from the IRIS Dena under Colombo’s international treaty obligations.
Asked if Colombo was under pressure from the US to not repatriate the Iranians, Herath did not answer directly. “We have taken all the steps according to international laws,” Herath said.
Sri Lanka also provided safe haven to a second Iranian warship, the IRIS Bushehr, and evacuated its 219 crew a day after the Dena was torpedoed.
The ship was taken to Trincomalee on Sri Lanka’s northeast coast after reporting engine problems.
Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said this week that Colombo would follow the Hague Convention, which requires a neutral state to hold combatants of a warring state until hostilities end.
A senior administration official said Colombo was in talks with the International Committee of the Red Cross to deal with the survivors of the torpedoed ship.
International humanitarian law applied to the survivors, an official said, and the wounded could be repatriated at their request.
