Home > Iranian official: UN sanctions may lead us to seal off Persian Gulf

Iranian official: UN sanctions may lead us to seal off Persian Gulf

by Open-Publishing - Friday 27 January 2006
3 comments

International Europe Energy

A senior Iranian official threatened that Tehran may forcibly prevent oil export via the Straits of Hormuz if the UN imposed economic sanctions due to Iran’s nuclear program, an Iranian news Web site said on Monday.

This is the first time an Iranian official makes military threats in a public statement on Tehran’s recent disagreements with the West.

The news site, affiliated with the radical student movement in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was once a member, quoted Mohammed-Nabi Rudaki, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.

According to the report, Rudaki said that "if Europe does not act wisely with the Iranian nuclear portfolio and it is referred to the UN Security Council and economic or air travel restrictions are imposed unjustly, we have the power to halt oil supply to the last drop from the shores of the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz."

25% of the world’s oil production passes through the Straits of Hormuz, which connect the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean. The meaning of Rudaki’s threat is that not only will Tehran stop its oil production from reaching the West, it may also use force to prevent the other oil prodoucers in the region (the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait) from exporting to the West.

Raduki also warned that his country might quit from its membership in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/674159.html

Forum posts

  • Well another excuse for george bush to go to war. here we go again.

    • But this time your "heroic" American troops face soldiers with weapons and those who got used with cowardly killing Iraqi children and women will die.

    • bring it on mofo’s. time to bring this Muslim vs. the West crap to a head. lets see who’s left standing. better bring your A game.