Diplomats: Cyprus stopped suspected Iran arms ship 'as gesture to U.S.'

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Cyprus' detention and investigation of a ship carrying weapons in Limmasol is a gesture to the United States, senior Cypriot diplomats told Haaretz on Sunday.

Authorities on the island are continuing their black out of the case of the Russian ship, Monchegorsk, which sailed under a Cypriot flag from Iran to Syria and reached Limmasol Thursday, due to suspicions that it is carrying weapons in contravention of UN Security Council Resolution 1747. The resolution prohibits arms trade with Iran.

The ship remains anchored off Limmasol, and has been only partly searched by Cypriot officials.

According to the diplomats, the search of the ship was delayed due to the weekend and because of the great care the government is taking in dealing with what it considers to be a very sensitive affair. One of the reasons for the sensitivity is the fact that Cyprus is governed by the Communist Party, which is concerned over the fact that the ship is Russian-owned.

The diplomats said that the government of Cyprus understands that the ship is "Cypriot for all intents and purposes" in terms of international law, because it is flying the Cypriot flag, and added there was no legal obligation to detain the vessel. "We could have let it sail on to Syria and disappear there," one diplomat said.

The officials did note, however, that detaining the ship was part of a decision to respond to an American request.

"This was an opportunity to show the new U.S. administration that we are interested in closer ties," one source said. "We stopped the ship as a gesture to the United States."

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday at the cabinet meeting that he was in constant touch with the U.S. Department of Defense regarding the ship. He added that pressure should be brought to bear on the Cypriots to unload it completely at the Limmasol port.

Barak also said that the weapons that have been found so far on board were apparently not intended for Hamas, but for the Syrian army. However, he noted, there are still 30 to 40 containers yet to be checked.

"From our perspective, the question is whether they contain other things intended for Hezbollah or Hamas," Barak said.