UNITED NATIONS — Iran’s president used the world’s stage on Wednesday to warn that security in the Persian Gulf could unravel with a “single blunder” and its fragile peace be guaranteed only by the region’s countries, not through U.S. intervention or Washington’s “merciless economic terrorism.”
President Hassan Rouhani accused the United States was engaging in “international piracy” against his country by re-imposing economic sanctions after Washington withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Tehran “will never negotiate with an enemy that seeks to make Iran surrender with the weapon of poverty,” Rouhani said in his highly anticipated speech at the U.N. General Assembly. “Stop the sanctions so as to open the way for the start of negotiations.”
His words came shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced additional U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s ability to sell its oil, this time imposing penalties on six Chinese companies and their chief executives for continuing to transport Iranian crude.
“We’re telling China and all nations, know that we will sanction every violation of sanctionable activity,” Pompeo said at an event for United Against a Nuclear Iran, a lobby group opposed to the nuclear deal, a few blocks from where Rouhani was speaking at the United Nations’ headquarters.
Tensions in the Middle East have risen as the nuclear deal unravels under U.S. pressure and Iran turns back to expanding its nuclear enrichment program, despite previous compliance with it for up to a year after Trump’s withdrawal from the accord.
The escalating crisis has raised concerns of a direct conflict — a scenario that all parties, including bitter rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, have stressed they want to avoid. The United States, meanwhile, has sent military reinforcements and heightened its security presence around the Persian Gulf.
In his U.N. speech on Tuesday, Trump described Iran as “one of the greatest threats” to the planet.
Rouhani said U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria had failed, with Washington “unable to resolve the more sophisticated issues” plaguing the Middle East.
“Security shall not be supplied with American weapons and intervention,” he said. “Security cannot be purchased or supplied by foreign governments.”
While Rouhani’s manner was measured, his words were ominous.
“Our region is on the edge of collapse, as a single blunder can fuel a big fire,” he said, adding that it will become secure only when U.S. troops withdraw.
The vast divide between the Washington and Tehran runs right through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf where a fifth of the world’s oil passes each day.
Months of lower-level attacks on oil tankers near the strait and Iran’s shooting down of a U.S. surveillance drone over the waterway have been blamed on Iran.
