Iran Navy conducts 85 anti-piracy missions in 3 years
A high-ranking Iranian naval official says Iran's Navy has conducted at least 85 anti-piracy missions in international waters over the past three years, PressTV reports.
Iran's Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), Ali Akbar Marzban, said on Friday that more than 2,000 cargo vessels have also received Iranian naval escorts through the pirate-infested waters during the mentioned period.
Marzban highlighted that Iran's maritime forces managed to rescue a number of tankers as well as merchant vessels in its 85 operations.
Iran's Navy, in its latest anti-piracy mission, rescued a Panamanian freighter with 25 crew members on board from pirates in the Sea of Oman.
The “Cruiser Heilan” bulk cargo ship, which was heading to Singapore, was rescued by the Iranian Navy’s Bahregan destroyer on May 16.
Iran's Navy has been multiplying its naval presence in the international waters since last year, deploying vessels to the Indian Ocean and dispatching two ships via the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean for the first time in February 2011.
In addition, in line with the international efforts to combat piracy, the Iranian Navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008 to safeguard the vessels involved in maritime trade, especially the ships and oil tankers owned or leased by Iran.
In May 2011, International Maritime Organization (IMO) Secretary General Efthimios E. Mitropoulos described the anti-piracy efforts by Iran's Navy as “effective.”
The Gulf of Aden, which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea, is the quickest route for thousands of vessels traveling annually between Asia, Europe and the Americas.
However, attacks by heavily armed Somali pirates on speedboats have prompted some of the world's largest shipping firms to switch routes from the Suez Canal and reroute cargo vessels around southern Africa, leading to climbing shipping costs.