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UN report connects Iran to Aramco attacks

Iran/sauDI LAST September’s audacious drone attack in US seizures of weapons and related materiel
on Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities at Abqaiq and in November 2019 and February 2020 also came
Khurais took 5.7mn barrels per day of oil and from Iran.
700,000 bpd of natural gas liquids (NGLs) out of In a statement carried by Iran’s state media
production, and led to the biggest ever jump in on June 12, the Foreign Ministry denied the alle-
the oil price in a single day. gations, saying they “appear to have been made
Initially the strike was thought to have been under political pressure” from the United States
carried out by Iranian-backed houthi forces and Saudi Arabia.
based in Yemen, but not long afterwards suspi- The ministry noted that the report came “at
cion settled on Iran as the origin of the attacks. a time when the United States is working to...
The Saudi air force commented that the drones extend an arms embargo against Iran.”
appeared to have been based on Iranian drones Though the report has yet to be made public,
and that they were unlikely to have been Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryab-
launched from Yemen, contrary to the claims kov reiterated Moscow’s view that the UN-im-
of the houthis; the drones were said to be delta posed arms embargo that is due to expire in
wing-style craft of Iranian manufacture. And October “should not be extended.”
there was surveillance footage that had caught The report would represent a change from the
the drones travelling southward towards the last assessment by Guterres in December 2019,
facilities before the strike. This ruled out Yemen when he said the United Nations at that point
as a point of origin owing to the range they had been unable to confirm Iran’s involvement
would have had to have travelled. in drone and cruise-missile attacks on two Saudi
This was followed by the US identifying oil facilities.
the location in Southern Iran from which they Guterres reports to the Security Council
believe the drones and cruise missiles were every six months on the implementation of an
launched and saying it had “circumstantial evi- arms embargo on Iran and other restrictions that
dence” that Iran launched the strike from its remain in place after Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal
own soil in the form of satellite imagery which with six world powers.
showed Iran readying drones and missiles at Reuters quoted Guterres as telling the Secu-
launch sites in Iran before Saudi oil facilities were rity Council that some the items found had
attacked. design characteristics similar to those produced
Iran was quick to deny this, but France, Ger- by a commercial entity in Iran, or bore Persian
many and the United Kingdom, who had been markings, and that some were delivered to the
trying to calm relations between the United country between February 2016 and April 2018.
States and Iran, made a joint statement which he added that “these items may have been
concluded that it was clear…that Iran bears transferred in a manner inconsistent” with a
responsibility for this attack. There was no other 2015 Security Council resolution that enshrines
plausible explanation. Tehran’s deal with world powers to prevent it
Nine months on and the United Nations Sec- from developing nuclear weapons.
retary-General Antonio Guterres has now told “The secretariat assesses that the cruise mis-
the Security Council in a report quoted by Reu- siles and/or parts thereof used in the four attacks
ters that cruise missiles used in attacks on Saudi are of Iranian origin,” Guterres wrote in the
oil facilities last year were of Iranian origin. report.
Reuters said it had seen the report delivered The Security Council is due to discuss
by the UN chief and that several items recovered Guterres’ report later this month.™

Source: VOA

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 24 17•June•2020