Iranian cargo ships linked to missile program depart Chinese port for Iran — report

Two cargo ships owned by an Iranian company linked to Tehran’s ballistic missile program have left a chemical storage port in China en route to Iran, The Washington Post reports.

The newspaper notes that the two vessels belong to state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), a company sanctioned by the US, UK and European Union. It is accused of supplying Iranian military needs. Experts tell The Post that the Chinese port where the two ships were docked, at Gaolan, is known to handle chemicals used as key ingredients for rocket fuel.

Isaac Kardon, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, tells the paper: “China could have held these vessels at port, imposed an administrative delay, invented a customs hold — any number of bureaucratic tools, but didn’t. That’s a deliberate policy choice made during an active war in which Beijing publicly calls for restraint.”