Iran Press/Asia: Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said: "No official Iranian authority has confirmed a reported move by Pakistani authorities to seize a tanker carrying Iranian oil into the neighboring country."
The Iranian ambassador stated: "What has been claimed in the Pakistani media is the smuggling of Iranian oil, the accuracy of which requires a technical and expert opinion."
He went on to say: "In these pieces of news, the ownership of the tanker and the country where it comes from has not been mentioned."
Earlier, a Pakistani newspaper, the Express Tribune, cited a senior Pakistani senator as claiming that an Iranian ship had been detained while trying to smuggle oil into Pakistan using forged documents.
Abdul Rehman Malik, who chairs the Pakistani Senate’s Standing Committee on Interior, said that it was an American watchdog that first informed Islamabad that it should take legal action against the Iranian ship.
Some news sources claim that Pakistan, at the request of the United States, has seized a ship carrying Iranian oil off the coast of Karachi; however, no Pakistani official has commented on the issue so far.
In response to the alleged seizure of an Iranian ship in the port of Karachi, the Director-General of Maritime Affairs of Iran's Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO), Hossein Abbasnejad also said: "As of this writing, no official report has been submitted to the Ports and Maritime Organization."
Pointing out that the Pakistani authorities would have given Iran an official notice if any ship seizure involving Iranian ship had been taken place in Pakistan, Abbasnejad said: "No such thing has happened so far, but investigations are still underway."
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