Tag: MV Assa

MV Assa has been moored for more than a month without explanation India's navy said it was monitoring an Iranian cargo ship, with armed men on board, which had been moored off the country's southern coast for more than a month without explanation.Shipping data showed the ship MV Assa was owned and operated by Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), a company facing sanctions from the United States and the EU."The vessel is there and the navy has reported to the concerned Indian authorities that there are men on board carrying arms," navy spokesman Commander P.V.S. Satish told Reuters.Indian newspapers reported the government had made an official complaint to Iran about the vessel, anchored close to India's Lakshadweep islands.Neither Iran's nor India's foreign ministry were immediately available comment on the report.The MV Assa was last plotted on Sept. 26 off the coast of Oman and India, AIS ship tracking data on Reuters showed.IRISL was hit with financial sanctions by the U.S. Treasury in 2008 for its alleged role in aiding Iran's ballistic missile development programme.Such measures are part of wider efforts led by Western countries aimed mostly at forcing Tehran to curb its nuclear energy drive, which they suspect ...

MV Assa is armed with heavy machine guns A mysterious Iranian ship, anchored for close to 30 days near Lakshadweep, has become a major cause of concerns for the government and coastal security agencies.Reports, Tuesday, claimed that government has registered a strong protest with Tehran after the Navy confirmed that Iranian vessel MV Assa is armed with heavy machine guns.The ship has been anchored there for over a month and so far Iran has given no explanation to Indian authorities in this regard. The Iranian Ambassador to India was summoned last week and explicitly told that the vessel MV Assa needs to be shifted from its current location as the country faces grave terrorist threats from the sea.The authorities also told the Iranian Ambassador that a ship armed with machine guns cannot be allowed to halt in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) for an indefinite period.To counter India's objections, Iran says that it cannot object to its ship, which is standing in its EEZ. It claimed that India's territorial waters end at 12 nautical miles, beyond which lies the EEZ up to 200 nautical miles. A country has exclusive right to resources in its EEZ, but cannot interfere with commercial ...