Live updates: Follow the latest news onIran war
Panama raised the plight of the MSC Franscesca ship, which was seized by Iran last week and the crew of which remain in detention, at the UN on Thursday.
The MSC Francesca was intercepted as it attempted to cross through the Strait of Hormuz, following a ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran. It is currently being held on the Iranian coast. Efforts by Panama’s diplomats in the capital and in Colombia are under way to secure the crew’s release, an official told The National.
“The vessel remains in position awaiting instruction, the crew is safe but held by soldiers of Iran’s armed forces,” Panama’s delegate at the UN’s International Maritime Organisation said on Thursday. Iran’s reported reason for seizing MSC Francesca was the disconnection of its Automatic Identification System after it came under attack.
Panama rejected the claim at the IMO, saying that the master of the ship could legally switch off the AIS if a security risk presented itself. “This factor cannot be used to justify the detention,” the delegate said.
Another Panama-flagged ship, MSC Euphoria, also came under attack last week and has anchored at Khorfakkan in the UAE. Panama then condemned Iran’s “unilateral actions which undermine the right to free transit and put human lives at risk”.
Governments at the IMO have been discussing a UAE-tabled proposal to condemn Iran’s attacks and the “potentially catastrophic” impact on the marine environment in the Gulf, during the week-long meeting of the Marine Environment Protection Committee.
Captain Andrew Cook of the International Federation of Shipmasters Associations said it would be up to Panama to defend the ships bearing its flag, and to “condemn Iran in the strongest terms”.
But though Panama is considered to have the largest fleet in the world, the country “probably doesn't have the same influence as the EU or US”, he told The National. “I'm sure (Panama) would take action, I'm not sure how seriously (Iran) would take it,” he added.
Shipmasters are not equipped to deal with conflict situations such as the one that has arisen in the Strait of Hormuz. “He or she is not trained to manage these war-like situations, where the ships have been arrested,” he said. This is compounded by the limited rights a shipmaster is expected to be accorded in Iran, where they would have “no legal recourse” and “nowhere to go”.
The three vessels that attempted to cross the strait last week probably did so because they believed it was safe. “Somebody has made the decision to move ships through; you would assume they did that because they thought it was safe,” he said.
“Until there is a political solution or a temporary solution, which we thought we had a week ago, we would like the Strait of Hormuz to be open again,” he added. He reiterated calls to make shipmasters responsible for deciding whether or not to move a ship, rather than a ship's owner or company.
