Owner says in statement that two blasts onboard Sabiti were “probably caused by missile strikes”
An explosion damaged an Iranian oil tanker traveling through the Red Sea near Saudi Arabia on Friday, causing oil to leak into the Red Sea, Iranian media and the tanker’s owner have reported.
The National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) said in a statement that the hull of the Sabiti was hit by two separate explosions about 60 miles off the Saudi coast.
Continue reading...Russia and Iran have troops in Syria and will see opportunities amid chaos of US impulsiveness
Donald Trump’s decision to give the green light – now seemingly turning amber – for Turkey to enter northern Syria has produced a torrent of criticism from European capitals to Washington Republicans, all pointing out that Ankara’s move will revive Islamic State, cause untold civilian deaths and land the US with an indelible reputation across the Middle East as an unreliable ally.
But the west has been losing traction in Syria over the past two years, and it may be the reaction of Russia and Iran, who have forces on the ground in Syria, that will most concern the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Their reaction may also reveal more about the long-term future of Syria’s eight-year civil war.
Continue reading...Iranian women will be able to enter a football stadium on Thursday for the first time in decades, after Fifa threatened to suspend the Islamic republic over its controversial male-only policy. Iran has barred female spectators from football and other stadiums for around 40 years, with clerics arguing they must be shielded from the masculine atmosphere and sight of semi-clad men.
World football’s governing body last month ordered Iran to allow women access to stadiums without restrictions and in numbers determined by demand for tickets. The directive came after a fan dubbed “Blue Girl” died after setting herself on fire in fear of being jailed for dressing up as a boy in order to attend a match.
Continue reading...It is unclear whether Turkey has the will or capacity to take over detention camps
In early 2015, as Islamic State trampled over armies of the Middle East and menaced the west, the US turned to the Kurds for help. It was a familiar call, having been repeated over the decades whenever Washington needed a friend in the region. The outcome has been similar too.
Four years on, the people who helped safeguard the global order have been abandoned by the US on the eve of a Turkish push into Kurdish lands across north-eastern Syria. Betrayal has been an enduring theme whenever the US and the Kurds have partnered, but never before as nakedly as this.
Continue reading...Judge in Lodnon to decide amount UK should pay Tehran over 40-year-old arms deal
A court hearing in London over a £400m debt owed by the UK government to Iran could help decide the fate of the Iranian-British dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, imprisoned in Evin jail in Tehran for the last four years.
Mr Justice Phillips is being asked in the high court to settle the precise amount the UK should pay to the Iranians for a broken arms contract stretching bank 40 years.
Continue reading...Iranian president tells cabinet the country had been ready to accept terms of French UN plan
The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has told his cabinet that while the country had been ready to end its nuclear stand-off with the US broadly on terms set out by France at the United Nations, Donald Trump was not prepared to make public an apparent private offer to lift sanctions.
Although his account is inherently not impartial, it is the fullest version of behind-the-scenes diplomacy at the UN general assembly provided by the Iranians.
Continue reading...One man sentenced to death and others receive long sentences in further blow to efforts to calm US-Iranian tensions
Iranian courts have sentenced one man to death for spying for the US and jailed two others for 10 years for the same crime, as well as imprisoning a fourth person for six years for spying for Britain, an Iranian judiciary spokesman has said.
“One person has been sentenced to death for spying for America … but the ruling has been appealed,” Gholamhossein Esmaili told the judiciary’s news website, Mizan, on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Stena Impero, detained by Revolutionary Guards in July, departs Bandar Abbas
The British-flagged Stena Impero tanker that was seized by Iran in July has left the port of Bandar Abbas and is making its way to Dubai after more than two months in captivity.
“The vessel has left the port of Bandar Abbas and is transiting to Dubai for the crew to disembark and receive medical checks and debriefing,” said a statement from Stena Bulk, the Swedish company that owns the vessel. At normal speed it would reach Dubai within half a day.
Continue reading...EU warns it may have no choice if Iran takes further steps away from deal
The European Union has privately warned Iran that it will be forced to start withdrawing from the nuclear deal in November if Tehran goes ahead with its threat to take new steps away from the deal.
Iran has already taken three separate calibrated steps away from the deal, and has warned it will take a fourth in November unless the US lifts economic sanctions.
Continue reading...Hopes of a deal with Trump quashed as Rouhani accuses US of ‘economic terrorism’
Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, has ruled out negotiations on its nuclear programme with the United States so long as sanctions remained in place and said he was not interested in a “memento photo” with Donald Trump.
“I would like to announce that our response to any negotiation under sanctions is negative,” Rouhani said in an address to the UN general assembly in New York.
Continue reading...Saudi minister says military response to attack on oil facilities still being considered
Saudi Arabia has said that US patience with Iran is not inexhaustible and warned that military options are still being considered following the attack on the Aramco oil facilities earlier this month.
The Saudi foreign affairs minister, Adel al-Jubeir, also said the UN-commissioned report into the origins of the attack will be available fairly soon, and described the EU’s Monday statement ascribing responsibility to Iran as “very significant”.
Continue reading...PM says president could come up with better pact, in apparent shift from European position
Boris Johnson has sided with Donald Trump in calling the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran a “bad deal”, while praising the US president as a “very brilliant negotiator” capable of achieving a better one.
The prime minister’s remarks, made in a NBC interview, marked a sharp change in UK rhetoric. British leaders, including Johnson, had until now upheld the 2015 accord between six major powers and Iran as a major diplomatic achievement.
Continue reading...En route to the UN general assembly in New York, prime minister raises possibility that the British military could become involved
The UK now believes Iran was responsible for a major attack earlier this month on Saudi Arabian oil facilities, Boris Johnson has said, also raising the possibility that the British military could become involved in helping secure the Saudis against future aggression.
Speaking to reporters on his plane en route to the UN general assembly (UNGA) in New York, the prime minister said there was “a very high degree of probability” that Iran was behind the drone and missile attack two major oil installation on 14 September.
Continue reading...President Hassan Rouhani says international forces should ‘stay away’ to de-escalate regional crisis
Iran has accused foreign powers of raising Gulf’s “insecurity”.
President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday denounced the presence of international powers in the Gulf, adding that Iran would propose a peace plan, after the US ordered reinforcements to the region.
Continue reading...Prime minister says there is no discussion of Australian involvement after Donald Trump’s recent comments
Scott Morrison insists Australia will not be drawn into any military conflict with Iran, declaring our commitment is limited to protecting freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
Donald Trump, who flagged the prospect of a military strike against Iran, including, possibly, with nuclear weapons, during a meeting with Morrison in the Oval Office, before backtracking and saying his preference was for restraint – has sent additional troops and enhanced air and missile defence systems to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in response to a drone attack on Saudi oil facilities on 14 September.
Continue reading...Iran’s foreign minister not confident war can be avoided, but promises any conflict will not be ‘limited’
Iran has threatened to pursue and destroy any aggressor, and says war may be unavoidable in the wake of drone attacks on Saudi Arabian oilfields and a US troop build-up in the Gulf.
A day after the head of Iran’s elite Republican Guards said on state TV that “limited aggression will not remain limited,” the Iranian foreign minister told American network CBS that he was not confident that war could be avoided, while again denying Iranian involvement in the attacks on Saudi Arabia.
Continue reading...They must be laughing their socks off in Tehran. The days following last weekend’s attacks on Saudi oil facilities, blamed by the US on Iran, have seen an almost comical display of indecision, confusion and bluster by the leader of the world’s most powerful country. As a result, Iran looks stronger … and Donald Trump looks like a clown.
If Iranian leaders intended to call Trump’s bluff, they have succeeded – for now at least. The president’s immediate reaction to the attacks was to declare the US “locked and loaded” for retaliatory strikes. Then he remembered he’s opposed to fighting wars in the Middle East and hopes to be re-elected next year.
Continue reading...Trump has for now decided not to authorize an immediate military strike on Iran in response to attack
The Pentagon on Friday announced it will deploy additional US troops and missile defense equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as Donald Trump has at least for now put off any immediate military strike on Iran in response to the attack on the Saudi oil industry.
The US defense secretary, Mark Esper, told Pentagon reporters this is a first step to beef up security and he would not rule out additional moves down the road. General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more details about the deployment will be determined in the coming days, but it would not involve thousands of US troops.
Continue reading...Foreign minister’s comments further inflame tensions in Persian Gulf after oil attacks
Iran’s foreign minister has warned that any attack on his country after a series of missile strikes on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry would result in “all-out war”.
Javad Zarif also demanded that Riyadh hand over the evidence that it claimed proved the attack came from Iran, and not from Houthi-occupied Yemen.
Continue reading...Disentangling responsibility has been made so much harder by casual peacetime mendacity
Truth is notoriously the first casualty in war, but even more so in the run-up to a war.
The Middle East finds itself in the strange position at the moment where an undoubted crime has been committed, an apparent perpetrator has come forward providing elaborate supporting details of the weapon used, the motive and timing, but the victim refuses to believe the confessor, and instead accuses a third party.
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