Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday that Israel was involved in a US-led naval mission to provide maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran had recently seized merchant ships.
Speaking at a closed session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Katz said Israel was assisting the mission with intelligence and other unspecified fields, the Ynet news reported.He said the mission was in Israel’s strategic interest of countering Iran and boost ties with Gulf countries.
According to the Israeli news site, Katz told the committee that he instructed his ministry to work to include Israel in the mission after a recent visit to Abu Dhabi. The foreign minister was said to have discussed this at the time with an unnamed senior Emirati official, with whom he discussed the “Iranian threat.”
Katz also reportedly praised Britain’s announcement Monday that it would join the mission, making it the only country so far to officially do so.
The report did not specify whether Katz said Israel would send naval vessels to take part in the US-led mission. A report from the Kan public broadcaster last month said that Israel was not expected to send ships, but would provide intelligence.
Britain said Monday it will join forces with the United States to protect merchant vessels in the Gulf amid heightened tensions with Iran, after Tehran taunted Washington that its allies were too “ashamed” to join the mission.
Britain’s decision to form the joint maritime taskforce with the United States marks a departure in policy under new Prime Minister Boris Johnson, after efforts under his predecessor Theresa May to form a European-led grouping failed.
It follows a spate of incidents — including the seizure of ships — between Iran and Western powers, in particular Britain and the US, centered on the vital Strait of Hormuz thoroughfare.
“The UK is determined to ensure her shipping is protected from unlawful threats, and for that reason we have today joined the new maritime security mission in the Gulf,” Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said in a statement.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned Tuesday that a war with his country would be the “mother of all wars,” as he called for peace as well.
“Peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, war with Iran is the mother of all wars,” Rouhani said. according to the Reuters news agency.
He also referred to Britain’s seizing off Gibraltar of an Iranian tanker suspected of carrying oil to war-torn Syria in violation of EU sanctions.
“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.
Rouhani also said Tehran wanted talks with Washington but the United States must first lift sanctions it imposed on the Islamic Republic.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran favors talks and negotiations and, if the US really wants to talk, before anything else it should lift all sanctions,” he said in remarks aired live on state television.
Rouhani, speaking at the foreign ministry after meeting with his top diplomat, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said Iran was ready for talks regardless of whether or not the US remained party to Tehran’s landmark nuclear deal with world powers.
“Whether they want to come into the JCPOA or not, it’s up to them,” said Rouhani, referring to the 2015 nuclear deal known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
No comments:
Post a Comment