LONDON, March 19 (Reuters) - Countries at the UN’s shipping agency agreed to work towards a safe maritime corridor to evacuate commercial ships from the Gulf to protect seafarers during the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
In an extraordinary session to discuss the Middle East, the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) governing council agreed to encourage the establishment of a framework to facilitate the safe evacuation of merchant ships from high-risk and affected areas.
The IMO did not provide a timeframe for the establishment of the corridor and it was not clear whether Iran would cooperate.
The conflict has impacted around 20,000 seafarers on nearly 2,000 ships west of the Strait of Hormuz, IMO Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez said.
Shipping in the Gulf and along the narrow Strait of Hormuz, which carries around a fifth of the world's oil, has come to a near-standstill since the U.S. and Israel began strikes on Iran on February 28, as Iran's Revolutionary Guards have warned that any ship passing through the waterway will be targeted.
Several ships have come under attack in the Gulf since the beginning of the conflict, with the IMO reporting 17 vessel incidents that resulted in at least seven seafarer deaths.
Dominguez called on flag states to demand vessels stationed east of the strait avoid taking the ‘unnecessary risk’ of sailing west of the strait. "We must not expose seafarers to a higher risk than they already face right now," he said.
(Reporting by Enes Tunagur and Jonathan Saul in London; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
