| Iranian Revolutionary Guards drive speedboats in front of an oil tanker during a ceremony to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the downing of Iran Air flight 655 by the US navy, at the port of Bandar Abbas yesterday. The plane was shot down by mistake over the Gulf by the US navy’s guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes during a confrontation with Iranian speedboats on July 3, 1988, killing 290 civilian passengers and crew members |
Iranian MPs have signed a draft law aimed at banning Europe-bound oil tankers from using the Strait of Hormuz to punish EU nations that slapped sanctions on Tehran, reports said yesterday. “This project is a response to the oil sanctions imposed by the European Union on the Islamic Republic,” Ebrahim Agha Mohammadi, of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, was quoted as saying by Mehr news agency. “In line with this draft law, the government has the right to stop the transit of tankers (through Hormuz) carrying oil to countries which have imposed oil sanctions on Iran,” he added. Parliament would be asked to approve the draft law and consider it a “priority”, he said. An EU embargo on Iranian oil went into effect on Sunday, provoking anger in Tehran which says the measure will hurt talks with world powers over its sensitive nuclear activities. Oil market observer bodies and analysts say the embargo, coupled with US financial sanctions ramped up on Thursday, are gutting Iran’s vital oil exports, which account for half of government revenues. The International Energy Agency says Iran crude exports in May appear to have slipped to 1.5mn barrels per day (mbpd) as the market braced for the embargo, which has been phased in since being announced January 23. That is far less than the 2.1-2.2 mbpd Iran insists it still sells abroad. Iran has threatened to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Gulf if its nuclear programme is targeted by air strikes that Israel and the US reserve as an option. That threat, repeated since December, helped propel oil prices to a four-year high of $128 for a barrel of Brent North Sea reference crude in early March. But political and military officials have said they had no intention on carrying out any threat to close the strait. A heavy Western naval presence in the Gulf and surrounding area is a big impediment to any attempt to block the vital shipping route. If the bill is approved by parliament it would then have to be approved by the 12-member Council of Guardians, made up of clerics and lawyers selected by the supreme leader, which can veto any bill. Saudi Arabia has already taken precautionary steps against the possibility of Iran shutting down Hormuz, including the reopening of an old pipeline built by Iraq to bypass the strait and export more crude via the Red Sea terminals. The US has also sent four minesweepers to the Gulf to bolster the US Fifth Fleet after an Iranian military chief renewed threats of blocking Hormuz. lWorld powers and Iran will hold follow-up talks in Istanbul today over Tehran’s nuclear programme, the Turkish government said. Foreign ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said the meeting is “essentially technical” in nature. It was scheduled during strained talks in Moscow last month. That meeting between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group—permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the US, plus Germany—failed to make progress on the crisis.