Iran on Saturday criticized the US for what it called an “inhumane” decision to limit Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif’s movement on his visit to attend the UN summit in New York, rules that meant he could not visit Iranian Ambassador to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi in a hospital in the city where he was undergoing cancer treatment.
In July, the US restricted Zarif’s movement to just six blocks in New York.
The US Department of State said that it would allow the hospital visit request only if Iran released one of several US citizens it has “wrongfully detained.”
The official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Iranian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi as saying that the US had taken humanitarian issues “hostage” for political causes.
Late on Saturday, Zarif tweeted that he had communicated with Ravanchi by video call.
“Thanks to technology, I was able to see and talk to my friend of 40 years and our UN ambassador Ravanchi, who is in hospital here in New York only a few blocks away,” he said.
The spat comes amid heightened tension between Tehran and Washington following US President Donald Trump’s decision last year to pull out of a nuclear deal with Iran. The US has imposed sanctions that have kept Iran from selling its oil abroad and have crippled its economy. Iran has since begun breaking terms of the deal.
The tensions have included seizures of oil tankers at sea. On Friday, Iran released a British-flagged oil tanker it had seized in July as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20 percent of all oil passes.
The ship, the Stena Impero, set sail from Iran on Friday morning, arriving at an anchorage outside Dubai’s Port Rashid in the United Arab Emirates just before midnight. It docked on Saturday afternoon.
Erik Hanell, president and CEO of Swedish-based Stena Bulk, which owns the tanker, said that “considering the circumstances of the past 10 weeks, the vessel is in good condition,” which he said was testament to the professionalism of the crew.
The crew would go on shore leave while the Stena Impero, with a new crew onboard, would remain in Dubai for checks before re-entering service, Hanell said in an e-mailed statement.
The Stena Impero’s seizure came after authorities in Gibraltar, a British overseas territory, seized an Iranian supertanker on suspicion it was breaking EU sanctions by taking the oil to Syria. Gibraltar later released the tanker after it said Iran promised the ship would not go to Syria.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in