P2P-Zone - Iranian troops fire on Romanian oil rig

BUCHAREST, Romania - Romania said Iranian troops opened fire from a warship and seized a Romanian oil rig Tuesday off the coast of
Iran, holding its workers in an incident stemming from a commercial dispute.

Sergiu Medar, a national security adviser to Romanian President Traian Basescu, said the seizure resulted from a commercial dispute Iran is treating "in an extreme way." He gave no details.

Romania's Foreign Ministry called on Iranian authorities to immediately free Romanian crew members being held by the troops who took over the rig. The rig operator said seven Indian crew members had been released but 20 Romanians were still detained.

"We are dealing with a commercial dispute that is being treated in an extreme way by the Iranian authorities," Medar told Realitatea TV. He added that Iranian authorities had not confirmed the incident. Iranian officials and state media offered no immediate statements.

The company that operates the rig was in Iranian courts earlier this year over a dispute involving another one of its oil rigs, the Romanian financial weekly Saptamana Financiara has reported.

The Romanian Foreign Ministry said it had summoned Iran's ambassador to provide information and that Romania's charge d'affaires in Iran, Mircea Has, was instructed to lodge an official protest and request a meeting with Iranian diplomats there. It said it planned to send a Romanian embassy team to the area where the rig was attacked.

The Iranians fired into the air and then fired at the Orizont rig, said Radu Petrescu, a spokesman for rig operator GSP. A half-hour later, troops from the ship boarded and occupied the rig and the company lost contact with the 26 crew members, company officials said.

GSP President Gabriel Comanescu said, "They fired on the rig. They destroyed one of the cranes. Four armed soldiers climbed aboard the rig."

Has said the Romanian crew members were not injured and were being detained on the rig's helicopter pad.
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