‘Wants access to our ports’: EAM Jaishankar on India’s rescue of Iranian ships

New Delhi: In his first response to the US Navy’s sinking of the Iranian warship IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday said one Iranian ship had sought and received permission to dock in India while another Iranian warship, the IRIS Dena, got caught on the “wrong side of the incident” near Sri Lanka.ALSO READ | Days before ‘IRIS Dena’ was sunk by US, India provides safe harbor to another Iranian shipJaishankar made the remarks during the Resina Dialogue 2026 in New Delhi.

“I also support UNCLOS and international law… We received information from Iran that one of the ships that was probably closest to our border at the time wanted to come into our port. They reported that they were having problems… On March 1, we said we could come in and it took them a few days to get in and then they docked in Cochin… There were a lot of young cadets and they got off the ship,” the foreign minister said.He added that there were two other ships and the situation changed after a fleet review and exercise in India.

“This ship, or these ships, and two other ships… when they set out and came here, it was a completely different situation. They came for a fleet review and then they got caught on the wrong side of the incident. So for us, when this ship wanted to come in and also got into difficulty, I think it was the humane thing… we followed that principle. In the sense of other ships, one obviously being in a similar situation in Sri Lanka, they made the decision they did and unfortunately, one of them didn’t make it,” he explained.The Iranian frigate participated in the Milan-2026 exercise hosted by India in Visakhapatnam last month. The IRIS Dena was hit by a torpedo fired by a U.S. Navy submarine early Wednesday as it returned to international waters, in what War Secretary Pete Hegseth described as a “quiet death.”The fact that the sunken ship was returning from India and was hit in the Indian Ocean led to opposition criticism of the government.ALSO READ | IRIS Dena sinking: BJP says illogical to blame India for US attack on Iranian frigateTalking about the issue, Jaishankar pointed out that foreign troops are already present in the region.“There is a lot of debate on social media about this… Please understand the reality of the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia has been in the Indian Ocean for the past five years… The fact that foreign powers were stationed in Djibouti happened in the first decade of this century. The port of Hambantota (in Sri Lanka) came into being during this period,” he said.Diego Garcia is a joint US-UK military base located on the island of the same name in the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean.ALSO READ | Iran warns US it ‘regrets’ IRIS Dena submarine attack; second warship heads to Sri Lanka seeking asylumThe IRIS Dena was sunk by the United States in the epic Operation Fury against Iran launched on February 28 with Israel, which Israel dubbed Operation Roaring Lion. More than 80 sailors on the frigate were killed, and the Sri Lankan Navy rescued 32 people.Tehran responded by launching Operation Real Commitment 4, which targeted Israel and U.S. military bases in the Gulf states. Attacks have also targeted civilian infrastructure in Gulf states, drawing them into the conflict.