Iran and U.S. Trade Blame at UN as Security Council Urges Calm
The U.S. and Iran blamed each other for rising tensions as they exchanged barbs at the United Nations on Monday.
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and Iran blamed each other for rising tensions as they exchanged barbs at the United Nations on Monday while other members urged both sides to de-escalate.
Outside a session of the Security Council called by the U.S. -- where Iran wasn’t allowed to participate -- Iran’s Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi told reporters “you cannot start dialogue with someone who is threatening you, who is intimidating you.”
But Jonathan Cohen, the acting U.S. ambassador, said Iran was responsible for the recent attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman, and urged the Tehran government to “meet diplomacy with diplomacy.” He said he presented other Security Council members with evidence refuting Iran’s denial that it was behind the attacks and argued that an American drone shot down by Iran wasn’t in the Islamic Republic’s airspace.
The council met as tensions in the Persian Gulf and around the Strait of Hormuz -- a chokepoint for energy supplies -- have escalated dramatically in the past month after a year of a “maximum pressure” campaign by the Trump administration on Iran’s economy.
While Cohen told the Security Council that “it’s time for the world to join us” in saying Iran perpetrated the tanker attacks, the council stopped short of that. In a statement, it said only that it condemned the incidents as “a serious threat to maritime navigation and energy supply.”
Other envoys on the Security Council concentrated on urging both sides to work on “de-escalation and to look for diplomatic solutions,” as U.K. Ambassador Karen Pierce told reporters.
“At the same time,” she said, “one has to take very seriously the sorts of attacks that have occurred on the tankers, which is dangerous for international shipping, dangerous for regional security.”
To contact the reporter on this story: David Wainer in New York at dwainer3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert, John Harney
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