MOSCOW — Russian officials denied Thursday that a Russian tanker detained by the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf was carrying Iraqi oil in violation of a U.N. trade embargo and demanded that the vessel be released.
A U.S. Navy ship stopped the merchant vessel Volga-Neft-147 off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday and took oil samples to determine whether it was carrying Iraqi oil, the Pentagon said.
Russian Transport Minister Sergei Frank said the tanker was carrying fuel oil from Iran to various ports in the Emirates when it was detained.
"Judging from the ship's documents, there can be no talk of Iraqi oil," he told the Interfax news agency.
He said there was no way the ship's owner, Transpetro-Volga, could determine the origin of the oil loaded in Iran.
Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily Sredin denied the tanker was carrying contraband Iraqi crude oil. Sredin told Interfax that the tanker did not enter either Iraq's territorial waters or any Iraqi ports and must be released immediately.
"Of course, this situation does not suit us at all," he said. "We expressed our surprise over the incident through our embassies in Washington and Abu-Dhabi."
Sredin said Russia had "urged the American side not to take any hasty, forceful measures before we conduct our own investigation."
According to the Pentagon, when the vessel was stopped, it was traveling away from Iraq through the Straits of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world's oil passes.
Iraq has been unable to sell its oil on the open market since sanctions were imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. In 1996, the U.N. Security Council launched the oil-for-food program to allow Iraq to export limited amounts of oil to buy humanitarian goods for its people.
The United States said Thursday that the Russian tanker will be investigated to determine whether it was smuggling Iraqi oil.
White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said Thursday the boarding of the tanker was part of an active U.N. effort that in 1999 caught 19 shipments of Iraqi oil out of 700 boardings.
"This particular ship was stopped, boarded, and now it will undergo further investigation in port to determine whether this is indeed Iraqi oil it is carrying," Lockhart said.