An Iranian destroyer and support vessel are now sailing in the Atlantic Ocean on a rare mission far from the Islamic Republic, Iran’s state TV has reported, amid speculation that the ships could be bound for Venezuela.
The destroyer Sahand and the intelligence-gathering vessel Makran departed last month from Iran’s southern port of Bandar Abbas, said Adm Habibollah Sayyari, Iran’s deputy army chief, on Thursday. He described the mission as the Iranian navy’s longest and most challenging voyage yet, without elaborating.
Iranian state TV released a short clip of the destroyer cruising through the Atlantic’s rough seas. The video was most likely shot from the Makran, a converted commercial oil tanker with a mobile launch platform for helicopters.
The navy is improving its seafaring capacity and proving its long-term durability in unfavourable seas and the Atlantic’s unfavourable weather conditions,” Sayyari said, adding that the warships would not call at any other ports during the mission.
Images from Maxar Technologies dated 28 April appear to show seven Iranian fast-attack craft typically associated with its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard on the deck of the Makran. Satellite images from Planet Labs Inc suggest it left a port at Bandar Abbas some time after 29 April. It is not known exactly where the Makran and the destroyer are now.
In late May, the website Politico cited anonymous officials as suggesting that the ships’ final destination may be Venezuela. Iran maintains close ties with the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and has shipped gasoline and other products to the country amid a US sanctions campaign targeting fuel-starved Caracas. Venezuela is believed to have paid Iran, under US sanctions of its own, for the shipments.
During a news conference on 31 May, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh declined to say where the Makran was going.
“Iran is always present in international waters and it has this right based on international law and it can be present in international waters,” he said. “No country is able to violate this right, and I warn that no one makes miscalculations. Those who sit in glass houses should be careful.”
The fast-attack craft aboard the Makran are the type that the Guard uses in its tense encounters with US warships in the Persian Gulf and its narrow mouth, the strait of Hormuz. It’s not immediately clear what Venezuela’s plans would be for those ships.
“If the boats are delivered, they may form the core of an asymmetrical warfare force within Venezuela’s armed forces,” the US Naval Institute said in an earlier published analysis. “This could be focused on disrupting shipping as a means of countering superior naval forces. Shipping routes to and from the Panama Canal are near the Venezuelan coast.”
Earlier this month, fires sank Iran’s largest warship, the 207-meter (679-foot) Kharg, which was used to resupply other ships in the fleet at sea and conduct training exercises. Officials offered no cause for the blaze, which followed a series of mysterious explosions that began in 2019 targeting commercial ships in Middle Eastern waterways.
The unusual voyage comes ahead of Iran’s 18 June presidential election, which will see voters select a successor to the relatively moderate incumbent president, Hassan Rouhani.
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