“We caught the thief,” read a headline in the hard-line Iranian newspaper Vatan Emrooz one day after armed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) soldiers boarded a South Korean tanker in the Persian Gulf. The unit arrested the crew and took control of the vessel.
The editorial fueled speculation that Iran’s move was a tactical decision to force the South Korean government into unblocking $7 billion in Iranian oil sales held due to US sanctions and banking restrictions imposed on business with Tehran.