Rouhani held a phone call on Saturday with the Iranian Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, Ali Rabiei, who is currently in China as the head of an ad hoc committee tasked with following up on the condition of the tanker and its crew.
He said that Iran’s Foreign Ministry needed to hold more negotiations to use resources of neighboring countries and the Chinese government in order to gain immediate access to and obtain information about the tanker’s crew members.
Rouhani called on Rabiei to ensure that the Iranian and Chinese rescuers were able to enter the tanker at the earliest.
The Sanchi oil tanker, carrying 136,000 tonnes of condensate from Iran to South Korea, has been in flames since colliding with the CF Crystal, a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter, 160 nautical miles east of Shanghai on January 6.
