Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Sunday said Ukraine's attack on an Iranian commercial ship in the Caspian Sea "cannot go unanswered."
In a post on the social media platform X, Araghchi accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of ordering "a blatant UN Charter violation done at Israel's behest to drag Europe into its war."
He said he had "made clear that what the freeloader in Kyiv did CANNOT GO UNANSWERED" in phone calls with European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
According to the Iranian foreign ministry, the attack took place at 3:00 local time on Saturday (2330 GMT on Friday) and led to the vessel's explosion as well as a sailor's death.
The semi-official Mehr news agency on Sunday reported that three sailors were also injured in the attack.
Citing the Governor of Iran's northern Gilan province Hadi Haghshenas, it said that the steel-laden vessel was en route from Russia's Astrakhan Port to Iran's Anzali Port in Gilan when it came under attack.
The ship's bridge was destroyed, leaving it unable to continue its voyage, Haghshenas said, adding that the incident would be pursued through domestic and international legal channels.
Zelensky said on Saturday that his country's forces had hit a Russian warship and vessels used for transporting Iran-linked military cargo in the Caspian Sea.
Iran's FM says Ukraine's attack on Iranian ship "cannot go unanswered"
Low visibility, strong winds and high waves complicated the search for 16 people missing after a Vietnamese ship sank in the South China Sea, according to a Chinese maritime official Sunday evening.
A total of 46 crew members from the sunken Vietnamese ship were rescued as of 21:00 on Sunday, including one person rescued by the Vietnamese side, authorities in the south China city of Sansha said.
At 20:05, the Chinese side transferred 41 of those rescued in batches by life rafts from the Chinese rescue vessel Nanhai Jiu 115 to the Vietnamese naval ship Truong SA-01. The remaining four people are scheduled to be handed over on Monday.
"The missing 16 people are not on lifeboats or life rafts; they all fell into the water. Since people in the water are relatively small targets, it is quite difficult to detect them on radar. In addition, it is now evening, visibility at sea is poor, and the wind has increased to force seven to eight, and waves have risen to two to three meters high, making it harder for us to conduct search," said Zhou Zhou, deputy director of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration's command center, on Sunday evening.
The Vietnamese Khoi Nguyen 18, carrying 62 Vietnamese nationals, sank in bad weather near Yongshu Reef in the South China Sea on Friday evening.
At 18:23 on Saturday, Chinese rescue vessel Nanhai Jiu 115 spotted a life raft from the Vietnamese ship and rescued all 29 people aboard by 18:54.
China's Nanhai Rescue Bureau also sent another vessel and a rescue helicopter to support the search.
Since deploying the Nanhai Jiu 115 for routine rescue operations in the Nansha Islands in July 2018, the Nanhai Rescue Bureau has carried out 146 missions in waters administered by Sansha City near the islands, deploying rescue forces 332 times.
The bureau has rescued 817 people in distress, including 90 foreign nationals, as well as 33 vessels, including three foreign vessels.
Low visibility, strong wind, high waves complicate rescue efforts after Vietnamese ship sinks in South China Sea
