Let Iran lead region’s security, Tehran asks
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s president called Sunday on Western powers to leave the security of the Persian Gulf to regional nations led by Tehran, criticizing a new U.S.-led coalition patrolling the region’s waterways as nationwide parades showcased the Islamic Republic’s military arsenal.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani separately promised to unveil a regional peace plan at this week’s upcoming high-level meetings at the United Nations, which come amid heightened Mideast tensions after a series of attacks, including a missile-and-drone assault on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry.
Plans for talks between President Donald Trump and Rouhani during this week’s U.N. General Assembly meeting have become less likely as tensions increase between the two nations. France’s top diplomat said Sunday that the most pressing issue after the attack on key Saudi Arabian oil installations is not a potential meeting between the leaders of the United States and Iran but whether it’s possible to de-escalate the current “dangerous” situation.
The U.S. alleges Iran carried out the Sept. 14 attack on the world’s largest oil processor in the kingdom and an oil field, which caused oil prices to spike by the
biggest percentage since the 1991 Gulf War. While Yemen’s Iranian-allied Houthi rebels claimed the assault, Saudi Arabia says it was “unquestionably sponsored by Iran.”
For its part, Iran denies being responsible and has warned any retaliatory attack targeting it will result in an “all-out war.” That’s as it has begun enriching uranium beyond the terms of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, from which the U.S. unilaterally withdrew over a year earlier.
Rouhani spoke from a riser at the parade in Tehran, with uniformed officers from the country’s military and its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard beside him. The cleric later watched as soldiers carrying submachine guns marched and as portable missile launchers drove past as part of “Holy Defense Week,” which marks the start of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980.
Rouhani said Iran was willing to “extend the hand of friendship and brotherhood” to Persian Gulf nations and was “even ready to forgive their past mistakes.”
“Those who want to link the region’s incidents to the Islamic Republic of Iran are lying like their past lies that have been revealed,” the president said. “If they are truthful and really seek security in the region, they must not send weapons, fighter jets, bombs and dangerous arms to the region.”
Rouhani added that the U.S. and Western nations should “distance” themselves from the region.
“Your presence has always been a calamity for this region and the farther you go from our region and our nations, the more security would come for our region,” he said.
He said Iran’s plan would focus on providing security in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman “with help from regional countries.” Iran has boosted its naval cooperation with China, India, Oman, Pakistan, and Russia in recent years.
The U.S. maintains defense agreements across the Persian Gulf with allied Arab nations and has tens of thousands of troops stationed in the region. Since 1980, it has viewed the region as crucial to its national security, given its energy exports. A fifth of all oil traded passes through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf. The U.S. plans to send additional troops to the region over the tensions.
The parades and maneuvers Sunday appeared aimed at projecting Iranian strength with naval vessels, submarines and armed speedboats swarmed across the Persian Gulf and troops showed off land-to-sea missiles capable of targeting the U.S. Navy. Commandos fast-roped down onto the deck of a ship, resembling Iran’s July seizure of a British-flagged oil tanker.
Iranian ship seizures, as well as oil tanker explosions that the U.S. blames on Iran, spurred America to create a new coalition to protect Mideast waters. So far, Australia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to join it.
Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani called the U.S.-led coalition a “a new means for plundering the region,” according to Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency.
“We regard the emergence of such coalitions as the start of a new game to make the region insecure,” Larijani said, according to Tasnim.
NO PLAN TO MEET
Trump said he doesn’t plan to meet Rouhani during the U.N. General Assembly meeting this week, while leaving open the possibility that he might.
“Nothing is ever off the table completely, but I have no intention of meeting with Iran,” the U.S. president told reporters at the White House on Sunday. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I’m a very flexible person. But we have no intention. It’s not set up.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday that it’s doubtful that Trump and Rouhani would meet at the U.N. sessions that begin today in New York.
“The president has always said he’d leave the door open but it’s highly unlikely given the current circumstances,” Mnuchin said in a CNN interview.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. is “working diligently” toward a diplomatic resolution with Iran after accusing the Islamic Republic of Saudi Arabian oil field attacks, but that Trump is prepared to take other action if necessary.
Asked whether he’s confident of avoiding a war, Pompeo said, “we’re working towards that.” In a interview airing on CBS, Pompeo said the U.S. will respond in a way that reflects what he called “an attack by Iran on the world” and a “state-on-state act of war.” He said the U.S. is looking for a diplomatic resolution, while “apparently the Iranians are blood-thirsty and looking for war.”
FRANCE BACKS OFF
France has also been trying to find a diplomatic solution to U.S.-Iranian tensions, and there has been speculation that French President Emmanuel Macron was trying to arrange a meeting between Trump and Rouhani in New York for the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly.
But French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Sunday that was no longer a priority.
The foreign minister said that at last month’s summit of the seven major industrialized nations in the French resort of Biarritz, “there was scope for discussions aiming at a positive outcome.”
But Sunday, Le Drian said, “there is less space” given Iran’s violations of the nuclear agreement as well as the attacks against Saudi Arabia which are “definitely a game-changer.”
He reiterated that the claim of responsibility for the attacks by Yemen’s Houthi Shiite rebels is “hardly credible.” But he said France welcomed Saudi Arabia’s decision to call in U.N. and French experts and the government will wait for their findings.
“What is at stake during this week is whether or not we can carry on with this de-escalation process,” Le Drian said.
“As to a meeting between President Trump and President Rouhani, this is not the No. 1 issue,” he said. “The first thing is whether or not we can get back to de-escalation — and how — and it is the message that both the president and myself will be sending to our counterparts this week.”