Iran seized a fishing vessel and arrested five Saudi fishers in its waters, Tasnim reported July 22.
“The ship was seized close to Iran’s Farsi Island,” Ardashir Yar-Ahmadi, the head of Bushehr Province’s Fishery Organization, said.
Arresting Saudi fishers came three weeks after Riyadh released Iranian fishers after a year of prison.
Saudi Arabia released seven Iranian fishers and they arrived in Iran, Mehr reported June 29.
According to the report, they were imprisoned for a year when Saudi border guards jailed them.
Earlier, Saudi Arabia also claimed that it arrested three members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Majid Aqa-Babaei, the Iranian Interior Ministry’s director general for border affairs, told the Young Journalists Club June 20 that Saudi Arabia’s claim about the arrest of Iranian soldiers is not true.
He added that Saudi coastguards had opened fire at Iranian fishing boats in the waters south of Iran, killing one fisherman.
Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic relations with Iran after protesters stormed the Kingdom’s embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad on January 2, 2016 in response to Riyadh’s executing Saudi Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
