A few days after receiving scathing criticism from the International Maritime Organization for hijacking a container ship off its coast on 13 April, Iran gave the strongest signal yet that the vessel’s 24 seafarers might be allowed out of the country soon.
State-run Iranian media quoted the Islamic Republic’s top diplomat as saying that the crew of the Portugal-flagged 15,000-teu MSC Aries (built 2020) is “expected to be freed”.
“The humanitarian issue of the release of the ship’s crew is of serious concern to us,” foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told his Portuguese counterpart, Paulo Rangel, during a telephone conversation on Friday.
The 24 seafarers are all in good health, have received consular access and the ambassadors of their respective countries have been “informed of their release and extradition”, Amir-Abdollahian was quoted as saying.
Rangel, however, did not confirm having received information about the crew's actual release and merely stated on X late on Friday that he had “a long telephone conversation” with his Iranian counterpart about it.
MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, the ship’s manager, did not respond to a request for comment.
Following the release of one Indian cadet who was allowed to fly home, 17 of the MSC Aries’s Indian seafarers remain in Iran. Four crew members also held there are from the Philippines and one each from Estonia, Pakistan and Russia.
Sources following the affair closely confirm that talks are making progress, even though no formal decision to release the crew exists yet.
“There seems to be movement,” one official told TradeWinds.
Portugal’s AIS defense
Portugal has defended the ship’s master, notifying Iranian authorities that he had a right to switch off its AIS.
Sailing with its signal switched off and failure to respond to Iranian authorities were two reasons formally cited by Tehran to justify the ship's boarding by airborne special forces.
Speaking at the IMO last week, Iran’s representative described the seizure of the MSC Aries as a “technical issue” and that its crew would be repatriated based on “minimum safe manning standards”.
Past tanker seizures by Iran indicate crew exchanges occur weeks or months later, as owners send replacements.
The release of the seized ships and their cargo, however, is an altogether different matter.
Iran rarely returns captured vessels and cargo as retaliation for sanctions and seizures of Iranian ships by Western governments.
A different reason cited by Iranian media and officials for the capture of the MSC Aries is its ownership by Gortal Shipping, a company affiliated with Zodiac Maritime.
While Zodiac operates globally from London, it is ultimately owned by Israeli-born billionaire Eyal Ofer, who is based in Monaco.
