|
TOP STORIES
Britain on Saturday threatened Iran with "serious
consequences" for seizing a British-owned oil tanker the
previous evening as the government warned ships to avoid the crucial
shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz. The British government said in
a statement after an emergency meeting that it had "advised U.K.
shipping to stay out of the area for an interim period." The
crisis has caught Britain at a singularly vulnerable moment. Prime
Minister Theresa May is expected to resign on Wednesday.
The Trump administration is weighing a decision to end
waivers that allow Iran to operate a civilian nuclear program with
international assistance, in a move that would dismantle a key pillar
of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, according
to two current U.S. officials and a former official familiar with the
discussions. The administration has been locked in an internal debate
over the decision, and if carried out, the move could cause the
unraveling of the international nuclear agreement that has been
in jeopardy since President Donald Trump pulled the
U.S. out of the deal last year.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Saturday
that Iran has to decide if it wants to act like a "normal
nation" but that it showed "no indications" of
changing direction amid increasing tensions. "The Iranian
regime has to make a decision that it wants to behave like a normal
nation," Pompeo said at a news conference with Ecuadorian
President Lenín Moreno, according to a video of his remarks published
by Reuters.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency - the
U.N. body monitoring Iran's nuclear activities - has died at the age
of 72, the agency said in a statement Monday. Yukiya
Amano, a Japanese diplomat, was planning to step down early for
unspecified health reasons. The agency's secretariat, which is based
in Vienna, did not say when he died or give a cause of
death. The agency "regrets to inform with deepest
sadness of the passing away of Director General Yukiya Amano,"
the statement said, adding that the IAEA flag would be lowered to
half-staff.
Most of the Democrats running for president have
promised to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal if they win the Oval Office.
It won't be that easy. By the time Inauguration Day rolls
around in 2021, there might not even be a deal left - it has been
hanging on by a thread since President Donald Trump pulled the U.S.
out last year. Even if it still exists, sections of the 2015
agreement are set to expire in the coming years, Trump's punishing
sanctions on Iran will be hard to fully unwind, Iran has elections
that could put more anti-deal hard-liners in power and Tehran has
already threatened to unwind itself from the deal in the months ahead
Breaking just moments ago, the U.S. defense secretary,
he just authorized the deployment of military personnel to Saudi
Arabia as the U.S. now moves to counter the hostile state, the rogue
regime of Iran. U.S. Central Command is increasing surveillance in
the Straits of Hormuz tonight. And now, Sky News reports out of
Britain that the United Kingdom is advising ships to stay away from
the Straits of Hormuz for an interim period.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
British ministers are making plans aimed at targeting
Iran with sanctions in the aftermath of the Iranian seizure of a
British-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf, the Daily Telegraph newspaper
reported. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is expected to
announce on Sunday diplomatic and economic measures, including potential
asset freezes, as a response to the incident, according to the
report.
Tankers are offloading millions of barrels of Iranian
oil into storage tanks at Chinese ports, creating a hoard of crude
sitting on the doorstep of the world's biggest buyer. Two and a half
months after the White House banned the purchase of Iran's oil, the
nation's crude is continuing to be sent to China where it's being put
into what's known as "bonded storage," say people familiar
with operations at several Chinese ports.
The US State Department hosted Tuesday a diplomatic
consultancy meeting behind closed doors to discuss maritime
navigation security to deter threats in the region. Meanwhile,
Washington rejected offer of Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to
formally and permanently accept enhanced inspections of Iran's
nuclear program, in return for the permanent lifting of US sanctions.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Twitter has suspended several Iranian news accounts over
alleged harassment of people who follow the Baha'i faith. Young
Journalists Club (YJC), run by state broadcaster IRIB, state-run
IRNA, and Mehr were among the Farsi-language accounts suspended on
Saturday. Some agencies, including Fars agency and English-language
Press TV, remained active on the site. The affected agencies
speculated that the suspensions were linked to their coverage of
tensions in the region.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
RAMI DABBAS: Well, it is an alliance against the US interests
between the world's leading state-sponsor of terrorism which is Iran
and the most famous international terrorist group Al-Qaeda which is
formidable and menacing to the American interests, it is cooperation
and alliance between these terrorist forces against American and
Western interests.
Last month, news emerged that a devastating cache of
explosives had been discovered in London by security agencies back in
2015. The three tons of ammonium nitrate was "more than was used
in the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people," the Daily
Telegraph reported. The lethal stockpile was linked to Hezbollah, the
Lebanese Shi'a group that has been designated as a terrorist
organization-in whole or part-by much of the West. Hezbollah is
sponsored by Iran, and back in 2015, the U.K. had just signed on to
the Iranian nuclear deal. Nothing was made public.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Iran's most revered Revolutionary Guards commander says
talking with President Trump would be admitting defeat. The country's
supreme leader has ruled out any dealings with Washington. But now,
in a surprising split among Iranian hard-liners, some are expressing
a different opinion: It's time to sit down and resolve 40 years of
animosity with the United States, by talking directly to Mr. Trump.
Iran said on Monday that it had arrested 17 Iranian
citizens on charges of spying for the United States and had already
executed some of them, Iranian and Western news media reported. At a
news conference in Tehran, an official who identified himself as a
director of counterespionage in the Intelligence Ministry described
the arrests of people he said had been trained by the C.I.A., but he
did not name them and gave few details of their alleged spying.
Rather than tangle with a stronger U.S. military, Iran
is poking and prodding its Western antagonists in ways apparently
designed to avoid triggering war but that nonetheless seem to
heighten the risk of missteps and miscalculation that could lead to
an armed conflict with global consequences. The tensions picked up
Friday with Iran reporting it had seized a British-flagged oil tanker
in the Persian Gulf, one day after the U.S. said it destroyed an
Iranian drone that had flown within threatening range of an American
warship in the Strait of Hormuz.
Ships plying the Strait of Hormuz are getting caught in
the middle as Iran pushes back against U.S. sanctions and maneuvers
around a more muscular American regional presence, raising the risk
of direct military confrontation. A British-flagged oil tanker Iran
seized on Friday became the latest casualty of an Iranian
response to perceived aggression that stops short of full
conflict. Iran initially said it impounded the British vessel after
it collided with a fishing boat.
As tensions between Washington and
Tehran rise across the region, the United States is making
life more difficult for Iran in Iraq. The Treasury
Department sanctioned four Iraqis who are close to Iran on
July 18. Those sanctioned include two former
provincial governors and two militia leaders, all known as
figures close to Iran. The four individuals are Ahmed Abdullah
al-Jabouri, known also as "Abu Mazen," Rayan
al-Kildani, Nawfal al-Akoub and Waad Qado (Abu Jaffar al-Shabaki).
IRANIAN REGIONAL AGGRESSION
Tensions between Iran and the West reached a peak in the
Persian Gulf on the evening of July 19 as Iran detained a
British-flagged ship and warned another one allegedly in retaliation
for the detention of an Iranian oil tanker in Gibraltar.
Although diplomacy is still the most popular approach as far as other
players are concerned, all other options also appear to be on the
table as Iran remains defiant.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Iran's supreme leader said on Monday that a U.S. plan to
end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians through
development fueled by international investment was a "dangerous
plot" to destroy Palestinian identity with
money. "This dangerous plot aims to eliminate Palestinian
identity among the Palestinian people ... This is the main point that
one should resist, and not allow them to eliminate the Palestinian
identity using money," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, according to
his website.
An Israeli Cabinet minister says Iran knows "who
not to mess with" because Israel is the only country in the
world that is killing Iranian operatives. Tzachi Hanegbi spoke to
Israel Radio on Sunday after Iran's seizure of a British oil tanker in
the Strait of Hormuz. He was referring to Israel's strikes on Iranian
targets in Syria. Israel has long viewed Iran as its greatest threat
and has urged Western countries to take stronger measures against
Tehran.
Iran's state TV says a delegation from the Palestinian
militant group Hamas that is visiting Iran has met with the country's
supreme leader. The TV report on Monday says Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
held talks with Hamas' deputy chief, Saleh al-Arouri, who is heading
the delegation. The Hamas delegation also met with Kamal Kharrazi, an
adviser to Khamenei.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
Iran is working to transfer weaponry to Syria and
Hezbollah in Lebanon by sea, to avoid assaults that have targeted
arms shipments, Israeli officials believe.
Houthi rebels in Yemen have announced that they have
raised nearly $300,000 in the latest stage of their campaign for
Hezbollah. In a video published on Saturday, the director general of
Houthi radio station Sam FM posed with wads of cash as the team celebrated
raising 74,010,000 Yemeni riyals (Dh1.1 million, or $296,000) for the
Lebanese militants. "From Yemen the faith to Lebanon's
resistance, salute to the well-being of Yemen," they yell.
Saudi Arabia's minister of state for foreign affairs on
Sunday condemned Iran's seizure of a British flagged tanker in the
Strait of Hormuz and urged the international community to take action
to deter such "unacceptable" behavior. "Any
attack on the freedom of navigation is a violation of international
law," Adel Aljubeir said in a Twitter post. "Iran
must realize its acts of intercepting ships, including most recently
the British ship, are completely unacceptable. The world community must
take action to deter such behavior," he added.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
A British warship tried without success to stop Iran's
seizure on Friday of an oil tanker near the Strait of Hormuz, an
audio recording of the episode released on Sunday shows, underscoring
the perils to Persian Gulf shipping and the global economy during
escalating tensions between Iran and the West. "If you obey, you
will be safe," an English-speaking officer from the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran says in a radio call to the tanker,
Stena Impero, which was sailing under a British flag.
Britain on Saturday denounced Iran's seizure of a
British-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf as a "hostile act"
and rejected Tehran's explanation that it seized the vessel because
it had been involved in an accident. Iran's Revolutionary Guards
posted a video online showing speedboats pulling alongside the Stena
Impero tanker, its name clearly visible. Troops wearing ski masks and
carrying machine guns rappelled to its deck from a helicopter, the
same tactics used by British Royal Marines to seize an Iranian tanker
off the coast of Gibraltar two weeks ago.
British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said on Saturday
that he was worried that Iran had taken a "dangerous path"
after it seized a British-flagged tanker on Friday in the Strait of
Hormuz. Iran's Fars news agency reported that the Stena Impero
had been taken to the port of Bander Abbas, which faces the strait,
after it said the tanker had been involved in an accident with an
Iranian fishing vessel.
Iran's seizure of a British oil tanker was a response to
Britain's role in impounding an Iranian supertanker first, senior
officials said Saturday, as newly released video of the incident
showed Iranian commandos in black ski masks and fatigues rappelling
from a helicopter onto the vessel in the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
The seizure prompted condemnation from the U.K. and its European
allies as they continue to call for a de-escalation of tensions in
the critical waterway.
The United Kingdom is trying to defuse an escalating
standoff with Iran just days before Britain's ruling Conservative
Party announces the successor to Theresa May, who is resigning. Some
160,000 members of the Tory Party have until today to return their
ballots selecting a new leader. The winner, to be announced on
Tuesday, is expected to be Boris Johnson. Johnson is a mercurial,
pro-Brexit former foreign secretary who was also the London mayor and
is not known for his diplomacy.
Boris Johnson is expected to become Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom this week with a mandate to deliver Brexit. But
before he can even say Brussels, the new leader will confront an
international crisis started by Iran. This is an opportunity for Mr.
Johnson to display independence and strength while nudging Europe
toward a new approach to the Islamic Republic. On Friday Iran's
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized a British-flagged oil tanker
and its 23 crew members in the Strait of Hormuz.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment