11 India-bound ships transit Strait of Hormuz after US-Iran MoU; 10 vessels remain in Gulf: MEA

New Delhi [India], June 23 (ANI): India on Tuesday stated that 11 India-bound ships have transited the Strait of Hormuz following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Iran and the United States to halt hostilities, while 10 India-flagged vessels are still in the Persian Gulf region.

The operational assessment was provided by Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) during a regular press briefing.

“We have ten Indian-flagged vessels still in the Persian Gulf region. In addition, we have two Indian ships which have crossed from this side into the Persian Gulf. Since the signing of the MoU, eleven India-bound vessels have crossed the Strait of Hormuz,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated.

The diplomatic update from the MEA comes amid prolonged instability surrounding the highly critical maritime chokepoint, which serves as a primary transit corridor for international hydrocarbon and liquefied gas shipments.

While the Strait of Hormuz had been cleared for traffic last week under the preliminary Washington-Tehran MoU, Iranian authorities on Saturday proclaimed a renewed closure of the waterway following military strikes by Israel inside Lebanon.

Concurrently, commercial shipping traffic through the crucial passage has reportedly accelerated in the wake of recent developments.

Independent maritime tracking agencies have registered heightened commercial shipping traffic in the last few days, signalling a noticeable recovery in transport volumes after severe bottlenecks triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz since the US-Israel attack on Iran on February 28.

According to figures published by commodity analytics firm Kpler, no fewer than 36 resource carriers sailed through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, representing one of the densest operational windows observed since the conflict erupted in February.

The Iran-US MoU, formalised last week, initiated a 60-day diplomatic window to iron out long-standing strategic issues after months of direct military confrontations that heavily destabilised West Asian energy corridors and upended international financial markets. (ANI)

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