Humaira Pamuk
WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) – The United States is pressuring the Sri Lankan government not to repatriate survivors of an Iranian warship that sank this week, as well as the crew of a second Iranian warship in Sri Lanka’s custody, an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters on Friday showed.
A U.S. submarine sank the IRIS Dena warship in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday about 19 nautical miles off Sri Lanka’s southern port city of Galle, killing dozens of sailors and greatly expanding Washington’s pursuit of the Iranian navy.
Sri Lanka on Thursday began offloading 208 crew members from a second Iranian ship, the naval auxiliary ship IRIS Boostehr, which found itself stranded in Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone but beyond its maritime boundaries.
President Anura Kumar Dissanayake said his island nation had a “humanitarian responsibility” to accommodate the crew.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the Dana’s torpedo attack as a “quiet death,” the first such action by the U.S. since World War II and a clear sign of the expanding geographic scope of the conflict with Iran.
Jayne Howell, charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, said the internal State Department cable, dated March 6 and previously unreported, stressed to the Sri Lankan government that neither the Boostehr crew nor the 32 Dana survivors should be repatriated to Iran.
“Sri Lankan authorities should minimize Iran’s attempts to use detainees for propaganda purposes,” the statement said.
A State Department spokesman who spoke on condition of anonymity seemed to suggest that Washington was not trying to influence Sri Lanka’s decision on the issue.
“The United States certainly respects and recognizes Sri Lanka’s sovereignty in handling this situation. The final disposition of the IRIS Bushehr and its crew, as well as the Iranian sailors rescued at sea, is a decision made by Sri Lanka in accordance with its domestic law and international legal obligations,” the spokesperson said.
“We are engaged in dialogue with Sri Lanka and our ultimate goal is to mitigate the threat that Iran poses to the United States and our partners,” the spokesperson added.
Representatives from Dissanayake’s office and Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry were not immediately available for comment.
Howell also told the Israeli ambassadors to India and Sri Lanka that there were no plans to repatriate the crew to Iran, the cable said. The envoy asked Howell if he had any contact with the crew to encourage “defections,” the cable said.
Representatives of the Israeli embassy in New Delhi did not respond to requests for comment.
On Wednesday, Sri Lanka’s deputy health and mass media minister Hansaka Wijemuni told Reuters that Tehran had asked Colombo to help repatriate the bodies of those killed on the Dena, but a timeframe had not yet been set.
The Dana participated in a naval exercise organized by India in the Bay of Bengal last month and was hit by a US torpedo while returning to Iran.
An unnamed U.S. official told Reuters that the Dana was armed when it was attacked and that the U.S. gave no warning before launching the attack.
A U.S. State Department cable said the second ship, the Booshehr, would remain in Sri Lanka’s custody for the duration of the conflict.
Sri Lankan authorities said on Friday they were escorting the Bushehr to a port on the east coast and moving most of the crew to a naval camp near Colombo.
(Reporting by Humira Pamuk; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington and Uditha Jayasinghe in Colombo; Editing by Don Durfee and Daniel Wallis)