New Delhi: India summoned the US Charge’s d’affaires (CDA), for the second time in less than 48 hours, on Friday, to register a protest against the targetting of yet another tanker, with Indian seafarers on board, off the coast of Oman.
Three Indian seamen were killed earlier this week after the US Navy carried out a missile strike on a Palau-flagged tanker.
The latest ship to be attacked by the US Navy was the MT Jalveer, a Guinea-Bissau-flagged tanker. This is the third such incident in the area in four days. India has made it clear that it fears for the safety of its seafarers on board ships trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz and has called for an end to the strikes.
There were 22 Indian seafarers on board MT Jalveer. All of them have been safely evacuated.
US CDA Jason Meeks was summoned on Friday afternoon. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) additional secretary, (Americas division), Nagaraj Naidu, called him in to convey India’s concerns about the safety and security of Indians on ships stranded on the Strait of Hormuz, as reported by The Indian Express.
Meeks was last summoned by the MEA following an attack earlier in the day on a commercial vessels off the coast of Oman. Of the 24 Indian seafarers on the ship MT Settebello, 21 were rescued while three were killed.
Wednesday’s summons was the first for India in its dealings with the Donald Trump administration.
MT Jalveer was attacked on Thursday evening as Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, confirmed the deatha of the three Indian seafarers.
The evacuation of the MT Jalveer crew to Shinas port was coordinated with assistance from the Royal Navy of Oman and all 22 Indians on board had been safely brought to shore, the Indian Embassy in Muscat said.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) claimed that MT Jalveer “attempted to transport oil from Iran through the Gulf of Oman”.
“A US aircraft fired two Hellfire missiles into the ship’s engine room after the crew repeatedly failed to comply with directions from US forces,” it said.
The tanker was “disabled” in the Gulf of Oman “after the vessel violated the blockade against Iran by attempting to transport Iranian oil, marking the third commercial ship disabled by American forces this week”, CENTCOM added.
“Earlier this week, US aircraft disabled Palau-flagged vessels MT Marivex and MT Settebello on Monday and Tuesday, respectively. Marivex violated the blockade by attempting to sail to an Iranian port and Settebello attempted to transport Iranian oil,” it said further.
MT Jalveer had already been fired at by an American aircraft last month, it has been learnt. On May 15, it received warning shots approximately 30 nautical miles off the Oman coast and was directed to turn back toward the Gulf of Oman.
Such attacks on commercial vessels, both by the US and Iran, and their ensuing diplomatic and economic impacts may cause challenges during the G7 leaders meeting next week at Evian-les-Bains in eastern France. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump will be among world leaders at the meeting.
“We had summoned the US CDA (Jason Meeks) to register a protest on the attack that happened on this commercial vessel off the coast of Oman. Three Indian nationals have died in that incident,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had said on Thursday, after Meeks was summoned for the first time.
“We have conveyed our deepest concerns on these incidents and the string of attacks happening. And we hope and expect that these would end, these would come to an immediate halt,” he said, underlining “our deep concerns regarding targeting of commercial ships, of marine personnel, as also civilian infrastructure”.
