20100410
INFORM

South Korea ordered a warship out of Somali waters after the owner of a hijacked South Korean supertanker began negotiations with its captors, a report said Saturday.

The navy destroyer had been trying to stop pirates heading the tanker into Somali waters but the risk of endangering the ship's crew prevented any military manoeuvres, Yonhap news agency said, without giving details on its source.

It said that now negotiations with the pirates had begun, the destroyer, Chungmugong Yisunshin, had been told to return to its usual area of operation in the Gulf of Aden.

The 300,000-tonne Samho Dream with a crew of 19 Filipinos and five South Koreans was seized Sunday in the Indian Ocean as it took crude oil from Iraq to the United States.

"The government decided the Chungmugong Yisunshin's tasks have been completed, and therefore the destroyer will return to its area of operation," Yonhap cited the source as saying.

The 4,500-tonne South Korean warship was in the Gulf of Aden on anti-piracy operations with about 300 soldiers on board.

Pirates from the lawless Horn of African country have turned the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean into a dangerous route for foreign vessels. In recent months, the sea bandits have shifted to the Indian Ocean to avoid international navy patrols in the Gulf of Aden.