A South Korean shipping firm wants to start talks with Somali pirates on returning a tanker with a cargo of crude oil worth as much as $170 million they seized and freeing the crew taken hostage, an official said today.
The South Korean-operated, Singapore-owned Samho Dream, which can carry more than two million barrels of crude, was seized on Sunday en route from Iraq to the United States.
"We are enlisting a mediator and we will try to enter immediately into negotiations," an official from the shipping firm said.
Local media said the negotiations could take several months. The tanker's crew of five South Koreans and 19 Filipinos was taken hostage when it was seized in the Indian Ocean, about 1,560km east of the Somali coast.
The Samho Dream is now anchored about 4.5km from the Somali coast, and a South Korean destroyer that has been trailing the tanker for days is within striking distance.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "The government's basic stance is that we do not negotiate with pirates. If there is any negotiation, we believe it would be based on wishes of the ship owner."
The destroyer has weapons that can hit targets as far as 32km away. Military officials declined to comment on plans for the use of the war ship, which was deployed last year to protect commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
Increasingly brazen pirate activity has driven up insurance costs, forced some ships to go around South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal, and secured millions of dollars in ransoms.
Reuters