Page 9 - MEOG Week 39

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The sanctions brought in to target alleged Chinese purchases of Iranian crude include measures aimed at two Cosco Shipping Cor- poration subsidiaries, Cosco Shipping Tanker Dalian and Cosco Shipping Tanker (Dalian) Seaman and Ship Management Co Ltd.
John Kilduff of Again Capital was quoted by CNBC on September 27 as saying that if there was a breakthrough in talks that saw the US remove its sanctions against Iranian oil it would have a substantial downward impact on the oil price. “There’s been a big bearish risk from a thaw in the US Iran situation for some time and this will put a remarkable amount of oil back onto the market immediately if it were to occur,” he reportedly said.
“It’s not just Iranian production and exports. It’s millions of barrels in floating storage and mil- lions of barrels sitting in China’s ports waiting to be processed by customs,” Kilduff added.
How the US and Saudi response to the attacks ontheoilfacilitieswillevolveremainstobeseen.
Some analysts are convinced Trump will remain very wary of any military engagement with Iran that could result in a Middle East war that would prove unpopular with some of his core support- ers during his 2020 re-election campaign. But as the world knows by now, Trump is entirely capa- ble of surprise moves.
Rouhani this week warned world leaders gathered at the UN headquarters that the Gulf region is “on the edge of collapse, as a single blunder can fuel a big fire”.
“We shall respond decisively and strongly to any sort of transgression to and violation of our security and territorial integrity,” he added.
However, in the penultimate sentence of his address, Rouhani raised the possibility of resolving the Gulf standoff, saying: “This is the message of the Iranian nation: Let’s invest on hope towards a better future rather than in war and violence. Let’s return to justice; to peace; to law, commitment and promise and finally to the negotiatingtable.”™
Erdogan says stopping Iran imports ‘impossible’, urges against blame
Iran/tUrkey
TURKISH President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week that it was impossible for Tur- key to stop buying oil and natural gas from Iran despite the threat of US sanctions. He made the comments to broadcaster NTV on September 27 during a flight home from a visit to New York for the UN General Assembly and added that trade between Turkey and Iran would continue.
Speaking to reporters on the flight, Erdogan reportedly said Turkey was not afraid of possible US sanctions over its trade with Iran. He added that Ankara did not want to drop its co-op- eration with Tehran. Bloomberg, meanwhile, reported that after failing to nail down a meeting with US President Donald Trump during his trip to the US, Erdogan was signalling that Turkey would go ahead with an incursion into Syria.
Erdogan wants to set up a “safe zone” along the border where millions of refugees currently in Turkey could be hosted, and which would help curb the threat of US-backed Kurdish militia, which Ankara regards as a “terrorist” and insur- gent threat.
The US is supposed to be working jointly and closely with Turkey on setting up the safe zone but Erdogan has previously expressed frustra- tion at the slow pace in achieving objectives.
Erdogan told NTV: “Scheduled efforts are underway. As the schedule is moving along, all our preparations along the border are also complete. “Upon returning [to Turkey], we will hold evaluations ... on what sort of steps to take
and implement them ... because Turkey is not a countrythatcanbestalled.”
Urging caution
The Turkish president, whose geopolitical strat- egy involves maintaining a challenging set of alli- ances with the US, Russia and Iran, has difficult relations with the Saudis, particularly since the killing of Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate by a hit squad of agents sent from Riyadh in October last year.
He has therefore urged caution over rushing to blame Tehran for the September 14 attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities. The US, major Euro- pean powers and Saudi Arabia have all blamed the attacks on Iran, while the latter insists it was the Houthi group fighting Saudi-backed forces in the Yemen civil war that had staged the strikes.
“I don’t think it would be the right thing to blame Iran,” Erdogan said in an interview with Fox News broadcast on September 25. He added that the attacks had come from several parts of Yemen. “If we just place the entire burden on Iran, it won’t be the right way to go. Because the evidence available does not necessarily point to that fact,” Erdogan added.
The attack on the heartland of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry damaged the world’s biggest petro- leum-processing facility and knocked out more than 5% of global oil supply and half of Saudi oil production capacity.™
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