US must lift sanctions for talks: Iran

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In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Hassan Rouhani, left, speaks in a meeting with his Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the country’s senior diplomats in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2019. Rouhani reiterated that if Washington wants to open negotiations with Tehran, it must lift all sanctions against his country “before everything else.” (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

TEHRAN, Iran, Aug 6, (Agencies): Iran’s president has reiterated that if Washington wants to open negotiations with Tehran, it must lift all sanctions against his country “before everything else.” Iranian state TV says President Hassan Rouhani made the comments during a meeting with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Tuesday.

Rouhani also reiterated that America’s sanctions on his country are an act of “economic terrorism.” Tensions have escalated since President Donald Trump withdrew last year from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and imposed new and harsher sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking sectors. The US administration last week also announced financial sanctions on Zarif, after Trump last month imposed similar measures on Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

The sanctions are seen as part of a US maximum pressure campaign on Iran. War with Iran is the mother of all wars, Rouhani said on Tuesday in a speech broadcast live on state TV, warning once again that shipping might not be safe in the Strait of Hormuz oil waterway.

Tensions have risen between Iran and the West since last year when the United States pulled out of an international agreement which curbed the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme in return for an easing of economic sanctions on Iran. “Peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, war with Iran is the mother of all wars,” Rouhani said at the Foreign Ministry in a speech which also praised Zarif after the United States imposed sanctions on him on July 31.

Fuelling fears of a Middle East war with global repercussions, the Guards seized British tanker Stena Impero near the Strait of Hormuz in July for alleged marine violations, two weeks after British forces captured an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar accused of violating sanctions on Syria. “A strait for a strait. It can’t be that the Strait of Hormuz is free for you and the Strait of Gibraltar is not free for us,” Rouhani said. Approximately one-fifth of the world’s oil traffic passes through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The Guards seized an Iraqi oil tanker in the Gulf on Wednesday which they said was smuggling fuel and detained seven crewmen, Iran’s state media reported. China might escort Chinese commercial vessels in Gulf waters under a US proposal for a maritime coalition to secure oil shipping lanes following attacks on tankers, its envoy to the United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday. “If there happens to be a very unsafe situation we will consider having our navy escort our commercial vessels,” Ambassador Ni Jian told Reuters in Abu Dhabi. “We are studying the US proposal on Gulf escort arrangements,” China’s embassy later said in a text message.

Washington is lobbying other nations to join a maritime security coalition at a time of heightened tensions with Iran, which the United States has blamed for explosive blasts on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, a charge Tehran denies. President Donald Trump said in a June 24 tweet that China, Japan and other countries “should be protecting their own ships” in the Gulf region, where the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain. It was not clear if Washington had made an official request to Beijing, which has had to tread softly in the Middle East due to its close energy ties with both Iran and Saudi Arabia. The United States has struggled to gain support for the coalition from European and Asian allies, who fear it would further stoke tensions with Iran. So far only Britain has officially said it would join the mission to protect merchant ships after Iran seized a Britishfl agged vessel.

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