India allowed an Iranian warship to dock at one of its ports as a humanitarian gesture, Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday, after the United States sank another Iranian naval vessel near Sri Lanka.
The Iranian ship Lavan docked at the southern Indian port of Kochi on Wednesday following an urgent request from Tehran, an Indian government source said. The docking occurred on the same day a U.S. submarine struck the Iranian navy frigate Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said that weakening Iran’s naval capabilities is one of the objectives of the military campaign launched by the United States and Israel against Iran.
According to the U.S. Naval Institute, Lavan is an amphibious landing vessel. Jaishankar said the ship, along with two other Iranian vessels, had been scheduled to participate in a fleet review before the conflict escalated.
“They were coming in for a fleet review and then, in a way, got caught in the wrong circumstances,” Jaishankar said during the annual Raisina Dialogue conference. “We approached the situation from a humanitarian perspective, beyond the legal considerations. I believe we did the right thing.”
At least 87 people were reported killed in the U.S. strike on the frigate Dena, which occurred in Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone about 19 nautical miles off the coast.
India received the docking request for the Lavan on February 28, the same day the conflict involving Iran began, the government source said. The request was urgent because the vessel had developed technical problems.
The ship’s 183 crew members have been accommodated at naval facilities in Kochi, the source added.
According to Sri Lankan officials and information from the naval exercise’s website, the frigate Dena had been returning from a naval drill organized by India when it was attacked.
Meanwhile, Sri Lankan authorities said they were escorting another Iranian naval ship, Booshehr, to a harbour on the island’s eastern coast and relocating most of its crew to a navy facility near Colombo.