Iran To Return Five Captured Indian Sailors By 27 July; Rest Expected To Be Freed Soon As Talks Continue

Five Indian sailors who were detained in Iran have received air tickets to return home, reports The Hindu.

However, the middle-east country is still holding the 30 Indian sailors from two foreign-flagged ships- MT Riah and Stena Impero as negotiations to bring them back to India are still going on.

“We have learnt that Iran will allow five Indian sailors of MT Riah to return by 26-27 July. The five men have been given tickets to fly home, and we expect other sailors to be freed soon,” a source close to the bilateral negotiations said.

Both the ships were detained by the Iranian military. While Iran has started to the process to release the sailors on the MT Riah, they have still not replied to India’s Note Verbale on sailors detained from the Stena Impero.

The Stena Impero is a British-flagged vessel which was detained in a tit for tat move by Iran against the United Kingdom (UK) after the latter had seized an Iranian vessel- Grace 1 near Gibraltar.