Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday they had released a Vietnamese-flagged oil tanker they seized last month in the Sea of Oman in a tense incident also involving the US Navy.
While Iran’s Guards claimed they thwarted an attempt by the US ship to seize the MV Sothys carrying Iranian oil, US defence officials rejected that account and said that Iran seized the tanker and took it into its territorial waters.
“The seized Sothys oil tanker was released by court order after it was emptied of oil belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran in Bandar Abbas,” said Sepah News, the official website of the Revolutionary Guards.