MOSCOW. Sept 4 (Interfax) - Seven sailors, including one Russian, who were released from the Stena Impero tanker, are expected to leave Iran on Thursday, a diplomatic source told Interfax on Wednesday.
"We expect sailors to leave Iran on Thursday," the source said. They will most likely travel to Dubai, but "this information is not fully confirmed yet," he said.
Meanwhile, the Mehr news agency reported earlier, citing Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi's statement, that Tehran released the ship's crew members.
"We don't have any problem with crew and captain of the ship. The ship had been stopped because of its violation of laws, and it is natural to detain the crew with the ship [in this case]," he said. "Some of the crew members were allowed to leave the ship and return to daily life," he added.
Mehr did not specify the citizenship of the released crewmembers, but the Russian embassy in Tehran confirmed the information that seven crewmembers were released and said that one Russian is among them. As previously reported, three Russians were on board.
"Indeed, we can confirm the information that the Iranian authorities decided to release seven crewmembers at the ship-owner's request and in line with the ship captain's opinion," press attache of the Russian diplomatic mission Andrei Ganenko told Interfax.
"This decision was made so that these seven [sailors] could freely leave the ship, while the remaining 16 crewmembers will be able to ensure the good operation of the ship if it will have to set off for the high seas," he said.
"A Russian citizen is among those released. Two more Russians are staying onboard," Ganenko said.
"We told the Iranians that we are ready to take him from Bender-Abbas and transport him to Tehran for further delivery to Moscow. However, crewmembers have certain financial obligations to the ship-owner under a contract," the Russian diplomat said.
"And in this regard, the main options that are currently being explored are the dispatch of the crewmembers to either Dubai or Mumbai. The ship-owning company directly deals with all of that, but we, if needed, stand ready to join this at any time to help the Russian citizen," the press attache of the Russian diplomatic mission said.
The Stena Impero, a UK-flagged tanker, was detained in the Strait of Hormuz for violating international navigation rules on July 19, the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guard Corps said. This increased tensions in the relations between Iran and the West.
This happened after the Gibraltar authorities detained the Iranian Grace 1 tanker on July 4. Its crew was suspected of bypassing the EU sanctions and supplying oil to Syria from Iran. The tanker was released and left Gibraltar on August 19. The ship was renamed as Adrian Darya before the voyage. It was anchored in Gibraltar for 46 days.