DUBAI,
United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia said Wednesday it joined a
U.S.-led coalition to secure the Mideast’s waterways amid threats from
Iran after an attack targeting its crucial oil industry, while Iran’s
president told the kingdom it should see the attack as a warning to end
its yearslong war in Yemen.
The kingdom’s
decision to enter the International Maritime Security Construct came
ahead of a planned visit by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Saudi
officials separately planned to share information about the weapons used
to attack a Saudi oil field and the world’s largest crude oil
processing plant Saturday.
Yemen’s
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have claimed the attack. The U.S. accuses
Iran of being behind the assault, while Saudi Arabia already has said
“Iranian weaponry” was used. Iran denies that, though it comes amid a
summer of heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over its
unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.
“Almost
certainly it’s Iranian-backed,” Prince Khalid bin Bandar, Saudi
Arabia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, told the BBC. “We are trying
not to react too quickly because the last thing we need is more conflict
in the region.”
The state-run Saudi Press
Agency carried a statement Wednesday morning quoting an unnamed official
saying the kingdom had joined the International Maritime Security
Construct.
Australia, Bahrain and the United Kingdom already have joined the mission.
“The
kingdom’s accession to this international alliance comes in support of
regional and international efforts to deter and counter threats to
maritime navigation and global trade,” the news agency said.
Cmdr.
Joshua Frey, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, declined to
comment on the Saudi announcement, saying it “would be inappropriate to
comment on the status of individual nations and the nature of any
potential support.”
The coalition aims to
secure the broader Persian Gulf region. It includes surveillance of the
Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a
fifth of the world’s oil travels, and the Bab el-Mandeb, another narrow
strait that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden off Yemen and East
Africa. Smaller patrol boats and other craft will be available for
rapid response. The plan also allows for nations to escort their own
ships through the region.
The U.S. blames
Iran for the apparent limpet mine explosions on four vessels in May and
another two in June sailing in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of
Hormuz, something Iran denies being behind. Iran also seized a
British-flagged oil tanker and another based in the United Arab
Emirates.
It’s
unclear what role the kingdom will play in the coalition. Bahrain
already serves at the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
In
Tehran, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told his Cabinet that Saudi
Arabia should see the attack as a warning to end its war in Yemen, where
it has fought the Houthi rebels since 2015 and sought to restore the
internationally recognized government.
Rouhani
said Yemenis “did not hit hospitals, they did not hit schools or the
Sanaa bazaar,” mentioning the Saudi-led coalition’s widely criticized
airstrikes.
He added that Iran does not want
conflict in the region, but it was the Saudi-led coalition that “waged
the war in the region and ruined Yemen.”
“They
attacked an industrial center to warn you. Learn the lesson from the
warning,” he said, portraying the Houthis as responsible for the drone
strikes.
He did not address accusations Iran was behind the attacks in the video shown on state television.
Wednesday’s
announcements comes after Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said late
Tuesday that more than half of the country’s daily crude oil production
that was knocked out by an attack had been recovered and that production
capacity at its targeted plants would be fully restored by the end of
the month.
“Where would you find a company
in this whole world that went through such a devastating attack and came
out like a phoenix?” Energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said
about state-owned Saudi Aramco, which was the target of the attacks. His
question to reporters, many of them Saudi, drew applause.
Prince
Abdulaziz said Aramco will honor its commitments to its customers this
month by drawing from its reserves of crude oil and offering additional
crude production from other oil fields. He said production capacity
would reach up to 11 million barrels a day by the end of September and
12 million barrels in November.
He said production at the Abqaiq processing facility is currently at 2 million barrels per day.
Oil
prices spiked Monday, with benchmark Brent crude having the biggest
percentage gain since the 1991 Gulf War. Prices dropped Tuesday around
the Saudi announcement. Brent traded Wednesday morning around the same
prices as the day before, with a barrel costing over $64.
Pompeo
was due to land in the Red Sea city of Jiddah, where he was scheduled
to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Pompeo later will
travel to the United Arab Emirates on Thursday to meet with Abu Dhabi’s
powerful crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Both nations
are U.S. allies and have been fighting against the Houthis in Yemen
since March 2015.
The Saudi military planned
to speak to journalists Wednesday in Riyadh to discuss the
investigation into Saturday’s attack “and present material evidence and
Iranian weapons proving the Iranian regime’s involvement.” It did not
elaborate.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that U.S. military
experts were in Saudi Arabia working with their counterparts to “do the
forensics on the attack” — gleaning evidence that could help build a
convincing case for where the weapons originated.
On
Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office announced experts
from his nation would be traveling to Saudi Arabia to help the kingdom
shed light ” on the origin and methods” of the attacks. France has been
trying to find a diplomatic solution to the tensions between Iran and
the U.S., so any conclusion they draw could be used to show what a
third-party assessed happened.
___
Associated
Press writers Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Nasser Karimi
in Tehran, Iran, Robert Burns in Washington and Angela Charlton in
Paris contributed to this report.
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