DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet said Friday it was “looking into” reports that Iran had seized two Greek oil tankers after Tehran threatened to take “punitive action” against Athens over a seizure of one of its tankers.
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Iran’s Nour News website, close to its security services, made the threat just as shipping news site Lloyd’s List said it believed two Greek tankers had been seized in the Persian Gulf. Quoting anonymous industry sources, Lloyd’s reported that the two ships had been boarded after Iranian military helicopters approached them on Friday afternoon. It said both tankers had just been loaded with Iraqi crude oil.
The crude oil cargo of an Iranian-flagged tanker that was stopped in Greek waters last month has been seized and is being transferred to another vessel following a request from the United States, a Greek official said Thursday.
The official said following a “judicial intervention by U.S. authorities concerning the ship’s cargo” the process is currently underway, at U.S. government expense, for the oil “to be handed over” off the port of Karystos on the Aegean Sea island of Evia.
The official, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss the case, did not provide further details. A Justice Department spokesman in Washington and the U.S. Embassy in Athens declined to comment Thursday.
Associated Press writer Nicholas Paphitis in Athens, Greece, and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
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