Troubled Waters: An Update on Iran’s Sanctioned State Shipping Line
Troubled Waters: An Update on Iran’s Sanctioned State Shipping Line
August 2, 2012
Nearly four years after the United States first sanctioned the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) and its fleet, the company appears to be struggling to stay afloat. In the latest sign that international pressure is having an impact, Irano Hind Shipping Company, a three-decade-old joint venture between IRISL and Shipping Corp of India, has been dissolved due to sanctions. And IRISL has been scrambling in recent months, setting up new front companies, dissolving others, swapping personnel, re-naming vessels, and re-flagging ships to increasingly unlikely locations.
The table below surveys the status of IRISL vessels blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury Department because of links to proliferation. It lists the current and previous names and flags for each of these 142 vessels, as well as their current owners, managers, and operators. The table reveals that vessels are now being re-flagged to unusual locations, like Moldova, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania.
A bill passed by the U.S. Congress on August 1 (which President Obama is expected to sign) should make it difficult for IRISL to obtain even these unlikely flags of convenience in the future. Among other things, the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act penalizes any country that helps Iran evade sanctions by reflagging its vessels. This could put additional pressure on countries that have popped up in IRISL’s latest round of ship re-flagging. Bolivia, which earlier this year briefly emerged as a flag of choice for IRISL vessels, has since de-flagged these ships. Malta too was once a popular flag of convenience for IRISL vessels; today none of the vessels on the blacklist are flying a Maltese flag. Read more…
http://www.iranwatch.org/enforcementnotebook/irisl-sanctions-impact-080212.htm
