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Iran on Friday blamed what it called "foreign military aggression" for oil pollution along the shores of Qeshm Island, alleging that contamination in the Persian Gulf is another consequence of military activity in the strategically sensitive Strait of Hormuz.
In a post on X, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, in a veiled reference, accused the military strikes by the US and its allied partners in the region of the oil spillage, arguing that the environmental damage highlights the need for Iran, as a key coastal state, to establish and enforce a management framework for the strategic waterways. "The oil pollution of the shores of Qeshm Island stems from the repercussions of foreign military aggression in the region. Such damages inflicted upon the environment of the Iranian coastal areas of the Persian Gulf further underscore the pressing necessity for Iran, as the coastal state, to define and implement a management mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz," Gharibabadi said in the post. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei also addressed the reported pollution, saying videos had emerged showing oil contamination along Qeshm Island's coastline. "Why must addressing the environmental condition of the Strait of Hormuz and its surrounding waters form an integral part of any future administration of the Strait?" Baqaei said in a post on X. He claimed the pollution had drifted towards the Iranian coast from the Persian Gulf and said preliminary evidence pointed to a foreign bulk carrier as the source. "Contamination has been documented at three coastal sites and across portions of the sea surface," Baqaei said, adding that the incident represented only one visible example of what he described as extensive pollution affecting the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman and the region's marine ecosystem. Baqaei attributed decades of environmental degradation in the region to a combination of commercial shipping, energy exports and military activity and questioned who should bear responsibility for the costs of environmental damage, including countries consuming energy exported from the region, shipping insurers and what he called "the aggressors and their partners". He further argued that parties benefiting from commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have a legal and moral responsibility to address environmental damage affecting the region. However, a US-hosted shipping-monitoring platform, TankerTrackers, offered a sharply different account of the incident. "The oil spill appears to derive from the Iranian attack on bulk carrier MINOAN PIONEER (9471630) on 2026-08-03 (26.45938, 56.53871) when she was in the Musandam Governorate of Oman. The spillage then drifted across the strait over to Iran. A self-inflicted wound by Iran," TankerTrackers said in a post on X. The incident comes amid heightened tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most strategically important maritime routes and a major corridor for global energy shipments. (ANI)
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