IRAN SEIZES OIL TANKER

South Korea’s chief delegate was sent to negotiate with his counterpart in Iran after Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards seized a 9,797-ton oil tanker as it sailed the Strait of Hormuz.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said five of the crew’s 20 members are South Korean. 
Tehran’s act of aggression reportedly stemmed from Seoul’s decision to freeze Iranian assets amounting to some $7 billion held in the country’s banks due to U.S. sanctions. The Financial Times reported that Iran has requested some of the funds – about €180m – so it could buy vaccines while the country deals with the coronavirus outbreak.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said Friday that he barred any coronavirus vaccine produced by British and U.S. companies. 
“They are completely untrustworthy,” he said. “If they were able to create a vaccine… why do they want to give it to us? Why don’t they use it themselves?”
Khamenei’s comments came in the form of a tweet, which was later removed. The paper reported 1.2 million people in the country have been infected by the virus, and there have been 56,000 deaths. Iran has a population of about 81 million. 
The money was seized after the U.S. withdrew from the nuclear agreement based on nuclear enrichment activities. President-elect Joe Biden has said he hopes to restore the deal. 
The FT reported that Woori Bank and the Industrial Bank of Korea hold some of the funds. The paper reported Ali Rabiei, a spokesman from Tehran, denied there was a hostage-taking. 
“But even if there is any hostage-taking, it is done by the Korean government. It has seized more than $7 billion of our money under baseless excuses and does not even let us use it for goods which are not apparently subject to sanctions at a difficult time for our people when imports of medicine are very important,” he said. 
Nikkei Asia reported Iran seized the Hankuk Chemi in the waters off Oman early last week based on so-called environmental concerns, but it was seen as a message to countries aligned with the U.S.
TRENDPOST: With President Trump – who unilaterally pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and ordered the assassination of Iran’s top military commander, Qasem Soleimani, last January – out and Biden in, we forecast easing tensions with Iran.
Absent a wild card event, there will be an easing of sanctions against Iran and a renewal of the nuclear deal, which Biden had favored as vice president under Barack Obama.