Germany and Britain on Monday warned Tehran not to breach uranium stockpile limits set by the 2015 nuclear deal, as the EU’s diplomatic chief dismissed Iranian threats as ‘political dialectics.’
Diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York revealed to Maariv that they are assessing the United States’ plans to carry out a tactical assault on Iran in response to the tanker attack in the Persian Gulf on Thursday.
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan announced on Monday the deployment of about 1,000 more troops to the Middle East for what he said were defensive purposes, citing concerns about a threat from Iran.
The Royal Navy is drawing up plans to deploy marines to the Persian Gulf to protect British ships after a series of alleged Iranian attacks on oil tankers in the region.
Houthi rebels in Yemen recently shot down a U.S. government-operated drone with assistance from Iran, the U.S. military said in a statement on Sunday.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that the United States is considering ‘a full range of options,’ including a military response, to combat Iranian aggression.
While it is ‘unmistakable’ that Iran was responsible for the attacks on two tankers last week, the United States does not want to go to war with Tehran, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday.
After the US accused Iran of being behind the attack on the oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, senior Israeli officials told Channel 13 that they too believe that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were the ones who carried out the attack on the oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.
The head of an Iranian academic institute that conducts nuclear research has called for the Islamic Republic to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and renegotiate the 2015 nuclear deal, and repeatedly dubbed international nuclear inspectors ‘cockroaches.’
Tehran said it would take further action Monday to renounce its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal signed with world powers.
The U.S. military’s Central Command has released a video is says shows Iranian forces removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the two ships suspected to have been attacked near the Strait of Hormuz.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has blamed Iran for the ‘blatant assault’ on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman earlier Thursday.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneni said Thursday that while Tehran doesn’t want an atomic bomb, ‘America could not do anything’ to stop it if it did, just days after the UN’s nuclear watchdog did not explicitly report that Iran was implementing its nuclear-related commitments and said that its rate of uranium enrichment was increasing.
The US Navy said it is helping the crew of two oil tankers after a ‘reported attack’ in the Gulf of Oman, just weeks after the US accused Iran of attacking other oil vessels in the same area.
Saudi Arabia has said it will carry out urgent reprisals as it accused Iran of being behind a late-night cruise missile attack by Houthi rebel fighters on a Saudi international airport that injured 26 people.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Iranian foreign minister of ‘lying’ on Monday and said he would never ‘allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons that threaten our existence and endanger the entire world.’
Just months after signing on to the Iran nuclear deal, authorities in London reportedly discovered that an Iran-linked group was stockpiling tons of the same explosive used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Iran has followed through on a threat to accelerate its production of enriched uranium, the head of the UN atomic watchdog said on Monday, departing from his usual guarded language to say he was worried about increasing tension.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned Monday that Tehran will not remain passive in response to what it says are threats from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to destroy Iran.
The Trump administration is reportedly considering sanctions against an Iranian financial body set up to enable humanitarian trade with Europe, a measure that would likely end any possibility of European countries maintaining economic and humanitarian trade with Tehran.