US pressing Sri Lanka not to repatriate Iranian crew from sunken ship

The United States is pressing Sri Lanka's government not to repatriate the survivors from the Iranian warship it sank this week, as well as the crew of a second Iranian ship that is in Sri Lankan custody, according to an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters on Friday.



A U.S. submarine sank the IRIS Dena warship in the Indian Ocean about 19 nautical miles off Sri Lanka's southern port city of Galle on Wednesday, killing dozens of sailors and dramatically widening Washington's pursuit of the Iranian navy.



On Thursday, Sri Lanka began offloading 208 crew members from a second Iranian ship, the naval auxiliary vessel IRIS Booshehr, which had found itself stranded in Sri Lanka's exclusive economic zone but outside its maritime boundary.



President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said his island nation had a "humanitarian responsibility" to take in the crew.