Nearly two-thirds of visits to European Union ports by sanctioned ships linked to the Iranian state shipping line, Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), have taken place in Malta, an investigation carried out by the Reuters news agency has revealed.
Nearly two-thirds of visits to European Union ports by sanctioned ships linked to the Iranian state shipping line, Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), have taken place in Malta, an investigation carried out by the Reuters news agency has revealed.
There is, however, nothing illegal about that because, thanks to a special clause that had been negotiated by Malta during EU internal negotiations, contracts between the sanctioned Iranian state shipping line and the Malta Freeport will remain valid until November 2013, although Malta is reportedly prepared to review that on condition that other countries follow suit.
But in the meantime, IRISL (sanctioned by the European Union, the United Nations and the United States) has been doing a bustling trade through the Malta Freeport transhipment hub. According to a Reuters investigation published yesterday, 64 % of stops at EU ports of call by IRISL cargo vessels have been to Malta.
Since the EU first imposed sanctions on Iran for its alleged role in smuggling banned weapons and components back in July 2010, Reuters reported, Malta has been visited 96 times out of a total 149 total stops at EU ports. 14 visits to Antwerp were recorded, and 10 to Rotterdam, according to an analysis, including vessel movements and port calls, for a Reuters special report into Iranian shipping sanctions.
Additionally, the report went on to add, Malta and Cyprus are also still providing ‘flags of convenience’ to what it says is the majority of the IRISL fleet – with 48 of its vessels flying the Maltese maritime flag, and with another 12 flying the Cypriot – out of 144 ships identified by the European Union and the United States as IRISL vessels.
Malta ready to de-flag ships
Quoted by Reuters last week, Foreign Minister Tonio Borg said that Malta was “moving in the direction” of de-flagging all IRISL vessels but said that other EU states would have to do likewise. Dr Borg insisted that the size of IRISL’s Maltese fleet was nothing untoward and was directly proportionate to the size of the country’s shipping registry, the EU’s
He was also quoted as saying that Malta was ready to de-register the entire Iranian fleet flying under the Maltese flag, perhaps even before the expiry of an EU clause honouring IRISL contracts until November 2013, after a possible review along such lines.
“We’re moving in that direction,” he was quoted as saying, adding the reservation that Iran should not simply be allowed to relocate its ships to other European countries. “We believe that all services to IRISL should be prohibited,” Dr Borg told Reuters. “We are ready to make that sacrifice, provided that all countries also make the sacrifice. Otherwise it would be masochistic.”
‘Sunny Malta, Iranian hideout’….is how the Reuters investigation describes the shady use of Malta and its shipping registry by Iran to circumnavigate international sanctions against its nuclear and other programmes – a damning verdict linking Malta to the rogue state’s illicit activities.
Also quoted in the report was Maltese Sanctions Monitoring Board chairman Joseph Cole, who said that rigorous customs inspections were dissuading the line from using the Freeport.
While he said that, as a result, operations by IRISL have been reduced to practically nothing, the Reuters investigation showed that 18 ships visited the Malta Freeport over the last two years, and three as recently as November.
The report also highlights how Malta is also home to at least 24 Iranian shell companies, as has been highlighted several times in the past, which have been used to transfer ship ownerships in a complicated web of sanctions busting.
Transport Malta, the investigation roughly estimates, earns some €300,000 a year by registering the IRISL-linked ships on Malta’s books.
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