Saudi Arabia has condemned an Iranian attack on an oil tanker owned by its national shipping company that resulted in the deaths of two citizens of the Philippines.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said Iran targeted the Sidr tanker, owned by national carrier Bahri, while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz two days earlier.<\/p>\n
“The kingdom stressed the necessity of halting escalations, and respecting international maritime safety and the security of global energy supplies,” the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia’s regional neighbours also condemned the attack, one of several recent incidents in the US-Israeli war with Iran launched on February 28.<\/p>\n
Kuwait and Qatar’s foreign ministries said the attack violated international law and freedom of maritime navigation.<\/p>\n
Qatar called the attack a “flagrant violation of the rules of international law and freedom of maritime navigation”. Doha further rejected the use of the Strait of Hormuz as a “bargaining chip”.<\/p>\n
Bahri, meanwhile, also confirmed the death on social media.<\/p>\n
“Bahri confirms that its vessel SIDR was involved in a security incident while transiting the Strait of Hormuz” late on Monday, it said.<\/p>\n
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“Bahri remains in continuous contact with the vessel and is coordinating closely with the relevant authorities and maritime industry stakeholders, while continuing to closely monitor developments,” it said.<\/p>\n
Iran has repeatedly attacked and threatened tankers attempting to sail through the strategic waterway without authorisation, impeding energy exports from neighbouring oil-rich Gulf countries.<\/p>\n
The US has maintained that vessels can safely transit the waterway, through which traffic has slowed considerably. Washington has promised to continue its counter-blockade of Iranian ports indefinitely.<\/p>\n
Overnight Monday into Tuesday, unidentified projectiles struck two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, Greek maritime risk management firm Marisks had said.<\/p>\n
Both vessels loaded two million barrels of crude at Juaymah on Saudi Arabia’s east coast last week, according to Kpler data.<\/p>\n
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On Wednesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said two oil tankers caught fire after striking mines while transiting the strait.<\/p>\n
Before the US-Israel war with Iran began, about 20 percent of the world’s oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
In July, another Bahri vessel, the Wedyan supertanker, was hit while passing through the strait close to Oman’s coast.<\/p>\n
Two other Bahri vessels, Masa and Amzan, were attacked in the Red Sea in July and August after Yemen’s Houthis declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia has condemned an Iranian attack on an oil tanker owned by its national shipping company that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[51985,3748,102,34,361,12426,50,75208,74402,101],"class_list":["post-275538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-bahri","tag-foreign-ministry","tag-hormuz","tag-iran","tag-iranian","tag-saudi","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-saudi-arabias","tag-sidr","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117203400291601486","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}