Tanzania cries foul over masquerading Iranian oil ships

East African country alerts port authorities around the world that Tehran is using Tanzanian identification on its ships without permission

By Stuart Winer

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1 August 2013, 12:18 pm

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Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

Illustrative photo of an Iranian cargo ship in Malta. (photo credit: CC-BY-SA Sludgepuller, Flickr)

Despite their having delisted three dozen Iranian ships, officials in Tanzania said Tehran was still using its call sign to duck around international sanctions aimed at Iran’s oil industry.

According to a report in the AllAfrica news website, at least three National Iranian Tanker Company-operated tanks have recently been transmitting using the “677” prefix code, which identifies them as sailing under the Tanzanian flag.

Officials from the East African country’s Zanzibar Maritime Authority have requested that port authorities take stern measures against Iranian ships that use Tanzanian identification codes and reaffirmed that they removed the registration of dozens of Iranian tankers, the website reported.

Authority director Abdi Maalim stressed that his country had canceled the registration of 36 Iranian tankers in order to not fall foul of international sanctions aimed at throttling Iran’s oil exports due to its nuclear program.

“We do not want any conflict,” he said. “We are very concerned because it was Zanzibar [a region of Tanzania] which registered the ships.”

This is not the first time Iran has attempted to fly the Tanzanian flag against Zanzibar’s wishes. In August 2012, officials said a Dubai-based shipping firm was secretly flagging ships from Cyprus and Malta with Tanzanian and Tuvalu flags. At the time, Zanzibar was in the process of delisting the ships.

Ship owners can register their vessels in countries around the world to mask the nationality of their operators. However, sanctions leveled against the Iranians include penalties for countries that allow Iran to ship oil by flying their flags.

Maalim said that the Iranians’ subterfuge was unacceptable and that a letter had been sent to Iranian authorities urging them to stop the activity.

In April 2012, the Tuvalu government agreed to cancel the registration of any Iranian-linked vessel following pressure from the United States, New Zealand and Australia. In September 2012 Sierra Leone unregistered 10 ships that it suspected were Iranian. In addition Cyprus and Malta no longer register Iranian-linked vessels.