WASHINGTON (AP) — Tests of oil samples taken from a Russian tanker suspected of violating the U.N. embargo on Iraq show that it was loaded with petroleum products derived from both Iranian and Iraqi crude, two senior defense officials said.
A majority of the oil was of Iranian origin, the officials said Wednesday.
The fact that the ship's cargo contained a mixture of Iranian and Iraqi oil complicates the decision on what to do with the Russian tanker, which has been detained in international waters but has not been diverted.
The Russian-flagged Akademik Pustovoit was detained by U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf last Wednesday, prompting the Russian government to demand that it be released. The oil giant Royal Dutch-Shell Group has insisted that the Russian tanker was carrying oil for Royal Dutch and that it came from Iran.
U.S. officials so far have not offered proof that the tanker had loaded its oil at an Iraqi terminal.
Russian officials charged that the tanker had been boarded and searched because it was Russian.
In February, the U.S. navy intercepted another Russian tanker, the Volga-Neft-147, in the Persian Gulf and concluded several days later that it was carrying Iraqi crude in violation of the U.N. embargo, which has been in place since the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait in 1990.
An international maritime force led by the U.S. Navy regularly monitors the Gulf for illegal shipments of Iraqi crude.
Maj. Joe LaMarca, spokesman at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., said Wednesday that analysis of the oil samples from the Akademik Pustovoit was not yet complete. "There still has been no decision to divert the ship," he said.
One American official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that a British-flagged ship was boarded in the Persian Gulf the same day the Akademik Pustovoit was searched. The British ship was found to have petroleum products of Iraqi origin but was allowed to proceed with nothing more than a warning.
At the Pentagon on Tuesday, spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley told reporters that the U.S. government was confident it would be proven correct in its suspicion that the Russian tanker was carrying Iraqi oil.
"We think the cargo tests ... will provide convincing evidence of the petroleum products' origin," he said. Quigley said U.S. Navy suspicions about the Russian tanker were based on more than verbal exchanges with the ship's captain. He said there were "other sources" involved but he would not identify them.
Defense Secretary William Cohen was asked about the situation on Monday during a visit to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Cohen said Iraq has been smuggling increasing amounts of oil this year as the international price has risen, and that Iran has helped by allowing ships bearing Iraqi oil to enter its territorial waters and offload the oil onto other ships — a procedure that nets Iran millions of dollars.
"So it's clear that this has been going on," Cohen said. "I indicated that Iran has been benefiting at least to the tune of $500 million annually. (Iraq) may be accumulating as much as $1 billion annually through this illegal smuggling."