Iran has released nine of the 12 Indian crew members captured from a Panama-flagged tanker. Earlier, Indian officials were given consular access to Indian nationals from another Iran-held tanker, which has a British flag.

There was a total of 30 Indians among the crew members of the two tankers seized by Iranian authorities on two separate occasions this month, 12 on the MT Riah and 18 on the Stena Impero. The release of the nine sailors from the MT Riah, which was announced by the Indian government on Friday, drops the number to 21.

Earlier in the day, Tehran said Indian diplomats had been granted access to Indian nationals from the Stena Impero crew.

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Unlike the MT Riah, whose entire crew is Indian, the Stena Impero also has Russian, Latvian and Filipino nationals on board.

In a related case, the supertanker Grace 1, which was detained by the UK while carrying Iranian crude through the Strait of Gibraltar, had 24 Indians among crew members. They remain in detention. Diplomats are working to secure their release, India’s foreign ministry said Thursday, a day after three diplomats meet the crew on board the detained ship.

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The detentions of tankers by Iran and the UK come amid a wider confrontation between Tehran and Washington, which ramped up military and economic pressure on the Islamic Republic in May. The escalation builds on a policy taken by the US last year, when the Trump administration broke the international nuclear agreement with Iran and started pressuring other nations like India to stop buying Iranian oil. Tehran considers US actions a form of economic warfare.

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