TEHRAN -- Iran has freed an oil tanker that it had confiscated for trying to “steal” its oil in late October following a confrontation with the United States Navy in the Sea of Oman.
Iran’s oil sales are subject to the most draconian U.S. sanctions ever imposed on a country, but the illegal measures have not deterred the Islamic Republic from sending shipments to their customers.
Earlier Wednesday, new agencies said satellite tracking data and other signals suggested that the detained oil tanker had left Iran and entered the Sea of Oman.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in a statement on Wednesday confirmed that the Sothys was freed.
The IRGC reiterated that the U.S. wished to steal its oil, “but the operation of the navy force of the terrorist U.S. army was foiled”.
The IRGC detained the ship on October 24 after its troops boarded it in a heliborne operation. They were then confronted by U.S. Navy vessels and aircraft, but warned them off and returned the ship to Iranian shores.
The U.S. was caught off guard, especially after the IRGC released a video of the incident in which Iranian forces repelled American destroyers.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby then claimed that U.S. forces had come to the scene to monitor the situation.
IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Ramazan Sharif dismissed it, stating that U.S. forces had a mission to protect the MV Sothys.
“They had come to provide support to the pirates of the Iranian oil and to escort them,” Sharif was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.
Iran said the U.S. attempted to seize its oil in an effort to enforce its unilateral sanctions imposed in 2018 after abandoning Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal.
The incident was publicized by the IRGC on November 3, a day before the 42nd anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, an event Iranian officials celebrate annually.
On Wednesday, the IRGC held a ceremony to laud its members that took part in the “epic” operation to seize the Sothys, and IRGC chief General Hussein Salami said the “unforgettable” day will go down in history.
“This major victory was very limited and small in terms of geography and scale, but had a huge impact in terms of its scope of humiliating the enemy,” he said.
During the ceremony, IRGC commander Alireza Tangsiri made a reference to dramatic footage of the incident that was aired by Iranian national television, and said the U.S. is lying that its forces were only there to monitor the situation.
“The American ships were less than 30 meters away from our vessels and forces,” he said. “If they only wanted to monitor then they could do it from longer distances or even use aircraft and drones”.
Iran held a large-scale military drill east of the Strait of Hormuz and in the Sea of Oman earlier this week.
The United States has a history of carrying out piracy acts against Iranian oil tankers under the pretext that the shipments violated the U.S. sanctions against Iran.
In August last year, the U.S. claimed that it had confiscated 1.1 million barrels of Iranian oil headed for Venezuela, but officials in Tehran said the cargoes did not belong to Iran.