Iranian troops occupy Romanian drilling platform in Gulf

Aug 22, 2006, 16:58 GMT

Bucharest - Iranian troops occupied a Romanian drilling platform in the Gulf Tuesday, confirmed Gabriel Comanescu, the president of the platform's Romanian operator GSP Grup.

The background to the incident was an ongoing dispute from April this year over drilling rights with Iranian oil companies Petroiran and Oriental Oil Kish, Comanescu said.

According to group president, an Iranian war ship first fired shots, then boarded company's Orizont platform.

Earlier a GSP spokesman said more than 20 employees were on the platform at the time.

Four armed Iranian soldiers were holding the platform, said GSP executive said, citing information from a platform employee who was able to communicate to the outside world by mobile phone. The employee added that all personnel were safe.

Sergiu Medar, security advisor to Romania's President Traian Basescu, said the government would wait for information from Iran before reacting, as only information from GSP was available.

'For now, we can only say that it's a trade row that Iran has reacted too harshly to,' Medar added.

Mircea Has, Romanian trade representative in Tehran, said he delivered a note of protest to the Iranian Foreign Ministry.