WASHINGTON, Dec 28, (Agencies): The United States warned Iran on Wednesday against any attempt to disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, after Tehran issued threats over the vital oil route.
“Interference with the transit … of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz will not be tolerated,” said Pentagon press secretary George Little.
Iran’s Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi has threatened to close the strait if the West imposed more sanctions on Iran as the country’s navy held exercises in international waters to the east of the channel.
Rahimi warned on Tuesday that “not a drop of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz” if the West broadened sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
Amid rising concern over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the United States and the European Union are weighing new sanctions against Tehran’s oil and financial sectors.
“The Iranians conduct exercises on a fairly routine basis in this area. That’s something that we know about,” Little said.
“That being said any effort to raise the temperature on tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz is unhelpful,” he said.
He added there was no sign of Iran taking provocative steps near the channel.
“I’m unaware of any aggressive hostile action directed toward US vessels in the Arabian Gulf or the Strait of Hormuz,” or against other ships, Little said.
As Iran carried out its drill, an American aircraft carrier, the USS John Stennis, and a guided-missile cruiser, the USS Mobile Bay, moved through the Strait of Hormuz in “a pre-planned, routine transit” on the way to the Arabian Sea to provide air power for the war in Afghanistan, Little said.
More than a third of the world’s tanker-borne oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, linking the Gulf — and its petroleum-exporting states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — to the Indian Ocean.
The United States maintains a major naval presence in the Gulf mainly to ensure the safe passage of oil through the area.
Iran’s navy chief, Admiral Habibollah Sayari, said the exercises east of the strait were designed to show Gulf neighbors the power of Iran’s military over the zone.
Ships and aircraft dropped mines in the sea Tuesday as part of the drill, and on Wednesday drones flew out over the Indian Ocean, according to the Iranian navy.
Meanwhile, the European Union is pressing ahead with plans to impose new sanctions on Iran, an EU spokesman said Wednesday after Tehran threatened to close a vital oil transit channel in response to Western measures.
“The European Union is considering another set of sanctions against Iran and we continue to do that,” Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, told AFP.
“We expect the decision will be taken in time for the foreign affairs council on Jan 30,” he said, referring to the next meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi warned on Tuesday that “not a drop of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz” if the West broadened sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.
The United States and the 27-nation EU are considering new sanctions aimed at Iran’s oil and financial sectors. But EU governments have been divided over whether to impose an embargo on Iranian crude.
Oil from Iran in 2010 amounted to 5.8 percent of total EU imports, making Tehran the bloc’s fifth-largest supplier after Russia, Norway, Libya and Saudi Arabia.
Spain represents 14.6 percent of Iranian oil imports to Europe, Greece 14.0 and Italy 13.1 percent.
More than a third of the world’s tanker-borne oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, linking the Gulf — and its petroleum-exporting states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — to the Indian Ocean.
The United States maintains a navy presence in the Gulf in large part to ensure that passage for oil remains free.
The United States renewed calls for Iran to release “without delay” a US citizen of Iranian descent who reportedly went on trial Tuesday on charges of spying for the CIA.
The State Department also said Swiss diplomats, who represent US interests in Tehran in the absence of diplomatic ties, asked Iran on Saturday for permission to see alleged spy Amir Mirzai Hekmati, but were denied their request.
“We are aware of press reports that a closed-door trial has begun against Mr Hekmati,” State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.
“We’ve seen this story before with the Iranian regime falsely accusing people of being spies and then holding innocent foreigners for political reasons.”
He urged Iran to grant the Swiss access to Hekmati and to release him “without delay.”
Iran’s Fars news agency reported that the prosecutor in Hekmati’s case called for the “maximum punishment” — presumably the death penalty — if he is convicted.
Confessions extracted from Hekmati “have made it clear that the accused cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency and acted against (Iran’s) national security,” the prosecutor was quoted as saying.
A lawyer says an ailing dissident, once Iran’s foreign minister, has been sentenced to eight years in prison and deprived of civil rights for five years.
Ebrahim Yazdi was convicted of acting against national security by Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Court, which deals with security and political crimes.
Yazdi is 80 and suffers from cancer and a heart ailment.
Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, Yazdi’s lawyer, told The Associated Press Wednesday that he has appealed the sentence. Yazdi is free for the meantime.
Yazdi’s Freedom Movement of Iran opposes Iran’s clerical rule. The party played a key role in the 1979 Islamic revolution but turned against the clerics as they consolidated power and crushed dissent. It rejects violence and advocates democratic reform.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to visit Venezuela and Cuba as part of a four-nation Latin America tour in the second week of January 2012, an official said Wednesday.
Ahmadinejad will also visit Nicaragua and Ecuador on the trip, his international affairs director, Mohammad Reza Forghani, told the official news agency IRNA.
All the countries are left-leaning and share an ideological antagonism towards Iran’s arch-foe, the United States.
“Mr Ahmadinejad will first go to Caracas to visit (Venezuelan President) Hugo Chavez,” Forghani said, confirming an announcement made Tuesday by Chavez.
“He will then go to the swearing-in ceremonies for Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who has been re-elected,” he said.
Ahmadinejad will then travel to Cuba and to Ecuador, where he will hold talks with the respective leaders.
Iran has been seeking to boost its ties with sympathetic Latin American countries in recent years, to the concern of the United States.