ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Indonesia has released an Iranian tanker it had held since January, according to Iranian state media.
The MT Hors, which belongs to the National Iranian Tanker Company, was released on Friday, IRNA reported. The vessel will continue on its original mission before returning to Iran.
Indonesia seized the tanker, along with a Panamanian-flagged vessel, in January on suspicion of illegal oil transfers.
The crew were suspected of a string of violations, including failing to display the vessels' national flags, turning off their identification systems to avoid detection and illegally transferring oil, AFP reported at the time.
However, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said the tanker’s seizure was a “technical issue.”
Iran’s economic activity, including exporting oil, has been widely restricted by sanctions reimposed by former US president Donald Trump after he withdrew Washington from the nuclear deal in 2018.
The US Treasury Department slapped sanctions on the National Iranian Tanker Company and senior officials from the oil ministry in October, amid a wave of hard-hitting measures as Trump’s administration prepared to leave the White House,
The department claimed they were providing financial support to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“The Iranian regime pawns its oil to fund the destabilizing misadventures of the IRGC rather than improving conditions for its people,” then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted at the time.
