By Jonathan Saul and Renee Maltezou
ATHENS, June 1 (Reuters) – Shipping executives meeting in Athens on Monday said that any peace deal worked out between the United States and Iran would need to offer clear rules allowing vessels to resume normal business via the Strait of Hormuz.
Shipowners and maritime industry officials met at a Capital Link conference and other events to begin Posidonia, a week-long biennial shipping exhibition.
Below are selected quotes (in alphabetical order):
ARSENIO DOMINGUEZ, SECRETARY GENERAL, INTERNATIONAL MARITIME ORGANISATION (IMO)
“There have been … recent announcements that there’s a possibility of a 60-day ceasefire. If that includes, of course, the Strait of Hormuz, and I can get guarantees from the countries that it is safe to start using the waterway, that’s where the evacuation framework immediately will come and kick in. That’s what we’re looking for, because the first objective is always to seafarers, to engage, so they can actually leave the conflict zone.”
PANKAJ KHANNA, PRESIDENT, HEIDMAR MARITIME HOLDINGS CORP”What we need is obviously a framework, a rules regulation, whatever tells us exactly how we can go in and get out. So even if a peace deal was signed, that needs to be clarified and that we don’t know as yet.
Khanna said the company had a vessel stuck inside the Gulf for the past three months and noted the impact on seafarers: “Obviously the seafarers on board are missing out, not only on seeing their families but also on births, on deaths, on marriages.”
VASILIS KIKILIAS, GREECE’S SHIPPING MINISTER
“Can somebody predict (an end to the conflict)? Unfortunately, no… Things get messy in terms of conflicts very, very easily, and they get untangled, (but that is) very, very difficult.
“We are hoping, of course, that there will be a solution. We cannot accept that there will be no free (passage) for ships all over the globe. I wish that they would leave the shipping industry, the seafarers, and global trade out of the equation, but it seems like this is impossible.”
EVANGELOS MARINAKIS, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, CAPITAL MARITIME & TRADING CORP
“We all agree that the war should stop, should finish yesterday even … the consumer pays the price all around the world.”
“On the other hand ..from what we have seen so far, we can afford to wait for two weeks more, one month more … if the final agreement was good for all of us… an agreement that would make us feel safe and confident for the future.
“I am quite optimistic that waiting for a couple of weeks or a month, a solution will be found.”
GEORGE PROCOPIOU, FOUNDER, DYNACOM TANKERS MANAGEMENT, DYNAGAS AND SEA TRADERS
“Freedom of navigation is essential and nobody can impose tolls or any other burden.”
“Greece has the tradition of breaking blockades since antiquity.”
YIANNIS PROCOPIOU, CEO, CENTROFIN MANAGEMENT
“While insurance might be available, this does not mean that the strait is really a place where you want to be transiting, at least until we have clear rules of engagement as the shipping industry, as to how we deal with the two nations that are involved here, the U.S. and Iran …That’s, right now, a very high risk proposition.”
(Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Jonathan Saul; editing by Jason Neely)
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