A tanker, sailing under the flag of Vietnam, the Sothys, has been spotted transferring 700,000 barrels of oil to an Iranian vessel, the ship-tracking online service Tankertrackers.com has reported on its Twitter page. The latest tracking data showed the Sothys anchored near Iran's Qeshm Island.
At the same time, Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it was following the developments around the Sothys and was working with Iranian authorities to "resolve this issue in accordance with the law". The ministry said it sought to enact the necessary measures to "safeguard the rights and interests of Vietnamese nationals".
The spokesperson for Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that all 26 members of Sothys' crew were treated well and remained in "normal health".
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy boarded the Sothys and apparently redirected it to the country's waters, claiming that the tanker was used by the US to "steal" Iranian oil. The Iranian media reported on 3 November that US warships detained an unnamed Iranian tanker and forced it to dump its cargo of crude into another vessel, presumably the Sothys, with the goal of "stealing" it from the Islamic Republic.
Tehran further said that US warships tried to prevent the recapture of the oil by the IRGC and sent a destroyer and a helicopter in an attempt to thwart the Sothys from sailing to Iranian waters.
A Pentagon spokesman later commented on the news, dismissing the Iranian media claims as "bogus" and insisting that the US never tried to seize Iranian oil and that only Tehran engaged in seizing the cargo. Earlier, however, Washington repeatedly boasted of detaining tankers purportedly carrying Iranian oil and seizing the crude under the pretext of sanctions.
The US Department of Defence's spokesman also claimed that there was no altercation between its destroyers deployed in the region and the IRGC. He insisted that the warships simply observed the IRGC maritime operation, even though the videos of the incident show a US Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer sailing in close proximity to the Sothys as the Iranians tried to board it.