March 7, 2026
India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, confirmed at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi that the Iranian warship IRIS Lavan has been moored in the southern port city of Kochi since earlier this week. According to Jaishankar, the vessel requested entry to Indian waters on March 1 because of technical problems and was permitted to dock on humanitarian grounds.
Jaishankar said most of the ship’s company are young cadets who disembarked and are currently being accommodated at a nearby facility. The IRIS Lavan and other Iranian naval vessels had been taking part in an international exercise hosted by the Indian Navy and were scheduled to participate in a fleet review before fighting erupted in the region. The minister said the ships were, in his words, “got caught, in a way, on the wrong side of events,” and that allowing the troubled ship in was the humane course of action.
His confirmation follows recent violent incidents at sea. On March 4, a US submarine torpedoed the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean, an attack that Iranian authorities say killed at least 87 people. Within 24 hours of that strike, another Iranian vessel, IRIS Bushehr, sought help from Sri Lanka; Colombo subsequently brought more than 200 sailors ashore.
Speaking at the geopolitics conference, Jaishankar warned that such episodes in the Indian Ocean carry broader regional consequences, stressing that the ocean’s security and incidents there are not confined to Indian jurisdiction alone.