ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Nearly 25,000 of Iranian shipping containers have been stranded in Pakistan and Oman after the United Arab Emirates refused to accept Iranian cargo due to the economic sanctions imposed by the United States, a transport industry official said Tuesday.
“The containers gathered at three different ports, Karachi, Sohar Port and Khor Fakkan, with around 15,000 to 18,000 containers stranded in Karachi of Pakistan’s Sindh Province,” Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) reported Tuesday, citing Masoud Daneshmand, a board member of Iran's Association of Transport Companies.
“The total number across all three locations could reach approximately 25,000,” said Daneshmand.
The economic embargo on Iran came several months after intensive aerial bombardment of Iran and tit-for-tat strikes in the Strait of Hormuz between the US and Iran.
Since the outbreak of its war with Tehran in late February, Washington has intensified its campaign to isolate Iran economically through Operation Economic Outcast which was launched in late August.
“The Treasury has mapped the networks, facilitators, and financial channels that Iran uses to smuggle oil, evade sanctions, and fund terror,” the US Treasury Department said in August, adding that Washington would be “uncompromising in targeting any source of the regime’s illicit revenue.”
Following Washington's announcement of the campaign, the UAE suspended trade with Iran and indefinitely halted all commercial and financial transactions with Tehran, following more than 3,000 drone and missile attacks by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) since the outbreak of the war.
The United Arab Emirates mid-September returned more than 200 refrigerated containers carrying Iranian agricultural products, leaving around 4,000 tons of agricultural products stranded on an Iranian island near the Strait of Hormuz.
Daneshmand said the containers are needed for the country's commercial activities and they are currently required for imports, exports and transit, adding “sanctions and restrictions on maritime routes have made it impossible to transport them directly by ship to the ports of Bandar Abbas or Chabahar.”
Regarding the land route from Karachi to Zahedan of Sistan-Baluchestan province, Daneshmand said transporting cargo from Karachi to Iran by road appears geographically feasible. However, a “shortage of trucks in Pakistan and high transportation costs have prevented this option from being implemented.”
The United Arab Emirates’ General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) in late September announced the suspension of flights operated by Iranian airlines to its territory “until further notice,” which still remains in place.
