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Iranian media reported Monday that the country’s elite Revolutionary Guard navy seized a South Korean ship “for polluting the Persian Gulf with chemicals.”
A South Korean-flagged tanker, the MT Hankuk Chemi, appears to have been captured by Iran and is now in Iranian territorial waters, two maritime security companies said.
Satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed MT Hankuk Chemi in front of the port of Bandar Abbas on Monday afternoon without explanation. He had been traveling from Saudi Arabia to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. The ship’s owners could not immediately be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, Iran says it has resumed enriching uranium to 20% purity, in a significant violation of the 2015 nuclear deal, amid tensions with the United States in the last weeks of the Trump administration. This reduces the time it would take to reach weapon level.
The move, which Iran told the UN nuclear watchdog about last week, was one of many mentioned in a law passed by Iran’s parliament last month in response to the assassination of the country’s top nuclear scientist, which Tehran blamed Israel.
Iran began violating the accord in 2019 in retaliation for Washington’s withdrawal from the accord and the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions against Tehran. The enrichment takes place at the Fordow site, which was built inside a mountain, apparently to protect it from aerial bombardment. The 2015 agreement does not allow enrichment there.
Sunday marked the first anniversary of a US drone strike that killed Top General Qassem Suleimani, and Washington has apparently prepared for possible retaliation. Both sides watch each other cautiously in the final days of the Trump administration.
After the United States stepped up military displays and threatening language, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused it on New Year’s Eve of trying to establish a “pretext for war.”
On Sunday, the United States reversed the decision to bring an aircraft carrier home from the Persian Gulf, and the Pentagon said that due to “recent threats” from Iran, the USS Nimitz would remain in position. The original plan to leave the region was intended to be a sign of downscaling for Iran. The United States has already sent additional B52 bombers to the area.
The European Union had warned that 20% enrichment would mark “a serious deviation” from Iran’s commitments in the 2015 nuclear deal. There will also be fears in Europe that Iran’s risky policy could provoke Israel into an attack. military.
The main goal of the nuclear deal with Iran was to extend the time needed to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it so desired, to at least a year from about two to three months. It also lifted international sanctions against Tehran.
US intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believe Iran had a secret and coordinated nuclear weapons program that it halted in 2003. Iran denies having had one.
The decision to increase the level of enriched uranium is likely more aimed at strengthening Tehran’s bargaining hand with the incoming Biden administration.
Joe Biden, who will take office on January 20, has signaled that Washington would join the so-called joint comprehensive plan of action aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear program.
The deal has been unraveling since Donald Trump withdrew in May 2018 and imposed crippling economic sanctions on Tehran.
Biden’s team has said it is willing to strike a “compliance by compliance” deal in which the United States would revert to the nuclear deal, thus lifting crippling economic sanctions on Tehran and, in return, Iran would comply with the restrictions. imposed in the agreement, which include uranium enrichment.
The latest Iranian step takes Tehran further away from the terms of the deal and underscores its willingness to play Washington for big risks. Until now, Iran was enriching uranium up to 4.5%, in violation of the agreement’s limit of 3.67%. Under the agreement, Iran is only allowed to produce up to 300 kg of uranium enriched in a particular composite form (UF6), which is the equivalent of 202.8 kg of uranium.
Low enriched uranium, which has a concentration of 3% to 5% isotopes of U-235, can be used to produce fuel for power plants. Weapons-grade uranium is 90% or more enriched.
Iran says it has no interest in a nuclear weapons program and that at one point Europe encouraged it to develop a civilian nuclear program.
The IAEA acknowledged on Saturday that Iran had informed its inspectors of the decision by letter that at some point it would go to 20%.
The highly protected Fordow site is near the Shiite holy city of Qom, about 55 miles southwest of Tehran. He was the subject of an alleged sabotage earlier this year. UN weapons inspectors can enter the site.
Iran’s rhetoric in recent days has emphasized that it feels morally free to exact revenge for Suleimani’s assassination, but it will do so at a time and place of its choosing.
