Germany’s VDR shipping association welcomes the two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States as an important signal for sailors stranded in the Gulf but remains cautious due to a lack of security guarantees, a spokesman told dpa on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
More than 2,200 commercial ships and some 20,000 sailors have been stuck in the Gulf since the outbreak of war on February 28, according to the VDR, after Iran threatened to attack ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
At least 50 of the affected vessels belong to German shipping companies, the group said.<\/p>\n
As part of the ceasefire deal, Iran has agreed to reopen the narrow waterway that connects the Gulf to the open ocean, making it a crucial chokepoint for global oil and gas trade.<\/p>\n
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) also welcomed the ceasefire, with Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez saying it was a good sign “for the health and wellbeing of seafarers and the global shipping industry.”<\/p>\n
“I am already working with the relevant parties to implement an appropriate mechanism to ensure the safe transit of ships through the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “The priority now is to ensure an evacuation that guarantees the safety of navigation.”<\/p>\n
German shipping companies are constantly reviewing whether it is safe again to pass through the strait, the VDR said.<\/p>\n
“However, given the continuing uncertainty of the situation and the lack of reliable security guarantees, it is likely that any potential transit operations will be considered very carefully,” the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
The Denmark-based Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO) initially advised shipping companies against transiting the Strait of Hormuz without prior consultations with Iran and the United States.<\/p>\n
Germany’s largest shipping company Hapag-Lloyd, which says six of its vessels are currently stuck in the Gulf, also continues to advise against transit “due to our current risk assessment,” a company spokesman said.<\/p>\n
As soon as passage through the strait is safe again, Hapag-Lloyd recommends that the ships leave the region, he said.<\/p>\n
Danish shipping giant Maersk, which says it has 10 ships stuck in the region, is reviewing possible options following the ceasefire agreement, a spokesman said, adding that the deal did not provide full safety for shipping traffic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germany’s VDR shipping association welcomes the two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States as an important signal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[7869,22498,444,34,22499,39,22426,406,101,22427],"class_list":{"0":"post-57880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-persian-gulf","8":"tag-commercial-ships","9":"tag-german-shipping-companies","10":"tag-gulf-of-oman","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-iran-and-the-united-states","13":"tag-persian-gulf","14":"tag-security-guarantees","15":"tag-shipping-companies","16":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","17":"tag-vdr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116369574198370117","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57880","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=57880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}