TEHRAN: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks alongside Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during a cabinet meeting yesterday. - AFP 

GENEVA: If Iran's
oil exports are cut to zero, international waterways will not have the same
security as before, its president said yesterday, cautioning Washington against
raising pressure on Tehran in an angry confrontation between the longtime foes.
The comment by President Hassan Rouhani coincided with a remark by Iranian
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that Tehran might act
"unpredictably" in response to "unpredictable" US policies
under President Donald Trump.

"World
powers know that in the case that oil is completely sanctioned and Iran's oil
exports are brought down to zero, international waterways can't have the same
security as before," Rouhani said while meeting Iranian Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to Khamenei's official website. "So
unilateral pressure against Iran can't be to their advantage and won't
guarantee their security in the region and the world."

Tensions between
Tehran and Washington have risen since the Trump administration last year quit
an international deal to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions and began to ratchet up
sanctions. Tehran has denounced the new penalties as "economic
warfare". In a speech at the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute (SIPRI), Zarif appeared to echo Rouhani's tone. "Mutual
unpredictability will lead to chaos. President Trump cannot expect to be
unpredictable and expect others to be predictable. Unpredictability will lead
to mutual unpredictability and unpredictability is chaotic," Zarif said.

Global commodity
trading has been rocked in recent months after a series of attacks on
international merchant vessels, which the United States has blamed on Iran, and
an Iranian seizure of a British oil tanker. Tehran has denied accusations that
it was behind attacks on six tankers in May and June. Washington, which has by
far the strongest Western naval contingent in the Gulf, has been calling for
its allies to join it in an operation to guard shipping in the Strait of
Hormuz, a vital gateway for the world's oil industry.

So far, Britain,
Bahrain and Australia have joined the US-led security mission to protect
merchant vessels travelling through key Middle East waterways. "This
destabilizing behavior is a threat to Australia's interests in the
region," Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told a news conference
in Canberra yesterday. "Our contribution will be limited in scope and it
will be time-bound." Morrison said Australia would send a P-8A Poseidon
surveillance plane to the Middle East for one month before the end of 2019,
while an Australian frigate would be deployed for six months from January.
Australia is a staunch ally of the United States, which in recent months has
urged partners to do more for global security.

Reiterating
Iran's chilly response to the security mission, Iranian Rear Admiral Ali
Fadavi, a deputy commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, said no one can
secure the Gulf other than Iran and countries of the region, according to the
semi-official Fars news agency. "Securing the Persian Gulf is the
responsibility of Iran and the countries of the region," Fadavi said.
"Other than us, no one can secure the Persian Gulf."

Erik Hanell,
owner of the British-flagged tanker detained by Iran while entering the Gulf,
met Zarif in Stockholm on Aug 20 to make the case for the ship and its crew to
be freed. The Stena Impero was diverted to an Iranian port on July 19, two
weeks after Britain detained an Iranian tanker off the territory of Gibraltar.
That ship was released this week. "A constructive dialogue was had and we
shared information around the case," Hanell, chief executive of Stena
Bulk, said in a statement yesterday. "It was important for us to emphasize
the importance of the release of the 23 crew...Also for the release of the
Swedish-owned vessel Stena Impero."

Meanwhile, the
Iranian tanker that has sparked a diplomatic row pitting Tehran against
Washington and London is too big to dock in Greece, the country's junior
foreign minister said yesterday. "This is a very large crude carrier, it
is over 130,000 tons... It cannot access any Greek dock," junior foreign
minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis told Ant1 TV. Varvitsiotis said the Greek
government had "faced pressure" from US authorities over the vessel
but insisted that Athens "has sent a clear message that we would not wish
to facilitate the transport of this oil to Syria under any circumstances."

The British Royal
Marines seized the ship on July 4 off British territory Gibraltar on suspicion
it was transporting oil to Syria in breach of European Union sanctions,
triggering a sharp deterioration in relations between Tehran and London. Iran
has repeatedly denied any violations. The incident has come at a difficult time
for Greece's new conservative government which was elected just over a month
ago.

Greek Prime
Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis' office yesterday said the PM is expected to visit
Washington "soon", and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected
to visit Greece in the autumn, Varvitsiotis said. Greece must also tread
carefully as its influential shipping sector does major business in the Arabian
Gulf. Varvitsiotis said Athens was not in contact with Tehran over the tanker,
which was originally called Grace 1 but has been renamed the Adrian Darya, and
had received no request from Iran.

The website
Marine Traffic, which earlier this week gave the ship's reported destination as
the Greek port of Kalamata, had placed the supertanker carrying 2.1 million
barrels of oil some 100 km northwest of the Algerian port of Oran. The maritime
tracker says the tanker is expected to arrive in Kalamata on Monday, but
Varvitsiotis suggested it may not dock in Greek waters at all. "It has
named Kalamata as its port of destination but this doesn't mean anything,"
adding: "It could drop anchor somewhere" else. "It could unload
the oil at any non-EU refinery. It could head south" to North Africa, he
added.

Separately, an
Iranian oil tanker has broken down in the Red Sea near Saudi Arabia but its
crew are safe and carrying out repairs, the oil ministry's website said
yesterday. The HELM suffered a "technical fault" about 120 km north
of the Saudi port of Yanbu on Tuesday, the ministry's website said, citing the
National Iranian Tanker Company. "The crew of the tanker are busy fixing
the defect and the vessel is in a stable situation from a safety
standpoint," the NITC's technical director Akbar Jabalameli was quoted as
saying. The crew of the tanker was safe and "in full readiness to solve
the problem", he added.

TankerTrackers.com,
which monitors ship movements, said the HELM was carrying 1.3 million barrels
of crude oil and heading towards the Suez Canal from the Iranian island of
Kharg. The vessel appears on the US Treasury's website in a list of entities
subject to American sanctions. It is the second such Iranian breakdown in
recent months after the tanker Happiness 1 was forced to seek repairs in the
Saudi port of Jeddah port that reportedly cost the Islamic republic $10
million. - Agencies