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the measures will come quickly enough and they may not be sufficient to persuade Iran to rethink its strategy of chipping away at the nuclear deal. Euro- pean companies have pulled out of Iran in droves and have given up on trading with the country, fearing they may be hit by US secondary sanctions and perhaps shut out of the US market and world financial markets.
US, UK blame Iran for tanker attacks
Though conclusive hard evidence has not been presented, Washington and
the UK have cited intelligence assess- ments in blaming last week’s attacks
on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Iran, a country which is now facing huge difficulties in exporting its own oil given the threat of the US to hit any custom- ers with reprisals. Tehran has denied any involvement in the attacks. It has described them as a false flag operation. The EU has yet to apportion blame.
Iran’s army chief, Maj Gen Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, said on June 17 that if Iran ever took the decision to block the export of all countries’ oil from the Gulf, by choking off the Strait of Hormuz, it would do so transparently. It would not resort to deception or covert operations, unlike the “terrorist and deceptive” US, he added.
Given the tensions, and the recent beef- ing up of US armed forces in the Gulf, many observers fear that Washington and Tehran are on the verge of a military clash and that one miscalculation, or action taken by foreign policy hawks on either side, could tip them over the edge.
Under the nuclear agreement, Iran
is entitled to keep a stockpile of no more than 300kg (660lbs) of uranium hexafluoride enriched to 3.67%. In his briefing, Kamalvandi said that because Iran recently decided to quadruple its production of low-enriched uranium, it would theoretically pass that limit on 27 June.
The IAEA said last month that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was 174.1kg in late May.
TANKER ATTACKS:
Tehran claims somebody’s out to frame Iran
bne IntelliNews
Ascertaining whether a state actor was behind attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on June 13 and the attacks on four tankers not far from the same spot on the map a month ago is now the urgent priority for governments anxious to prevent an outbreak of hostilities between Iran and its foes.
Late on June 13, without proffering hard evidence, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington had made up its mind that Iran was responsible, telling a press briefing: “It is the assessment of the United States government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today. This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.”
The latest incidents, which left the Norwegian-owned Front Altair and the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous seriously damaged, sent Brent crude up by almost 4.5% to almost $62.64 per barrel and Reuters reported ship brokers as saying that two oil tanker owners, DHT Holdings and Heidmar,
had suspended new bookings to the Mid-East Gulf. The Gulf of Oman opens out into the Indian Ocean but before that tankers must negotiate the Strait
of Hormuz, through which at least a fifth of the oil exported worldwide passes. Iranian hardliners have previously warned Iran would blockade the strategic ‘chokepoint’ to energy exports if the US did not relent on its policy of attempting to force all Iranian oil shipments off the world market, but, despite Pompeo's statement, that does not mean that all the finger-pointing for the tanker attacks is being aimed at Iran.
As Iranian officials have warned, there are foreign policy hawks in the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia who would be only too pleased to see a chain of events provoke military action against Tehran in their bid to reshape the Iranians’ influence in Middle East affairs.
The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, described the latest attacks as “suspicious” and indicated that the blame lay with a person or group trying to damage his country. “Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired this morning,” he tweeted.
Zarif pointed out that the incidents took place while Japanese PM Shinzo Abe was meeting Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Japanese have emphasized that they were not bringing specific messages from Trump.
Stepping up Iran’s denials of involvement in the tanker attacks, an Iranian official told the BBC: "Iran has no connection with the incident. Somebody is trying to destabilise relations between Iran and the international community."
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