NEW DELHI, March 6 (Reuters) – India has allowed an Iranian warship to dock as a humanitarian gesture, Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday, after the U.S. sank another Iranian navy vessel off neighbouring Sri Lanka.
The Lavan docked at India’s southern port of Kochi on Wednesday, the same day the U.S. submarine struck Iranian navy frigate Dena, after an urgent request from Tehran, an Indian government source told Reuters.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said destroying the Iranian navy is one aim of the war he and Israel launched against the Islamic Republic a week ago.
The Lavan – an amphibious landing vessel, according to the U.S. Naval Institute’s online news site – and two other ships “were coming in for a fleet review and then they got, in a way, caught on the wrong side of the events,” Jaishankar told the annual Raisina Dialogue event.
“I think we really approached it from the point of view of humanity, of other than whatever the legal issues were,” he said. “I think we did the right thing.”
At least 87 people were killed in the U.S. attack on the Dena in Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone 19 nautical miles off the coast, outside its maritime boundaries.
India received the docking request for the Lavan on February 28, the day the Iran war started, the source said late on Friday, adding that the request “was urgent as the vessel had developed technical issues”.
Its 183 crew members have been accommodated at naval facilities in Kochi, said the source, who asked not to be identified citing confidentiality.
The Dena was on its way back from a naval exercise organised by India, according to the drill’s website and Sri Lankan officials.
Sri Lankan authorities said on Friday that they were escorting the Iranian naval ship Booshehr to a harbour on the eastern coast and moving most of its crew to a navy camp near Colombo.
(Reporting by Sivaram V; Writing by Nidhi Verma; Editing by William Mallard)
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