Iran briefly allowed several Chinese-owned cargo ships through the Strait of Hormuz late Saturday, reports Caixin. This came after some South Korean and Saudi-linked tankers defied Tehran’s closure order and pushed through on routes closer to Oman.
The passage offered a fresh sign that the strait, a choke point for global energy shipments, could reopen intermittently even as Iran’s military said earlier Saturday that the waterway remained closed and that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wouldn’t issue passage permits to any vessel until further notice. By Saturday night, Iran had cleared four Chinese-owned cargo ships and two Greek-owned cargo ships to transit the strait.
The four Chinese-owned vessels were the 4,500-ton heavy emergency salvage crane ship Chuangli, operated by the Shanghai Salvage Bureau under China’s Ministry of Transport; the heavy-lift carrier Jin Xuxiang 88; the 30,000-ton general cargo ship Qilinzuo; and the 20,000-ton general cargo ship Zhesan. All identified themselves while transiting as “CHINA OWNER & CREW.”