UAE says Iran targeted tanker as Tehran says Hormuz deal with Oman close

DUBAI (AFP) -- The United Arab Emirates on Saturday said Iran had targeted a tanker belonging to the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has imposed an effective blockade of the strait and wants to charge users for passage, which the US fiercely opposes, and is in talks with nearby Oman over arrangements for the strait’s future management.

The UAE foreign ministry in a statement condemned what it called a “hostile Iranian attack that targeted a tanker belonging to ADNOC with a missile while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz, without causing casualties”.

On Friday, ADNOC had put out a statement saying that since the start of the war, 15 of its vessels had been attacked in Hormuz, “including three vessels this week alone”.

Before US-Israeli strikes in February kicked off what quickly became a regional war, Hormuz carried around a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday said that talks with Oman were “approaching the final stages” but cautioned that “this is not a sign of the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz”.

“The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is subject to other conditions and compensation for the violation of the memorandum of understanding by the United States,” he said, referencing a June agreement between the US and Iran to set terms for peace talks.

The Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the Iranian military, underscored the point on Saturday, saying: “The opening of the Strait of Hormuz has its own mechanism and has nothing to do with the negotiations between Iran and Oman.”

“The enemy is forced to accept Iran’s conditions for the opening of the strait and to refrain from the interference that it is currently making in the negotiations – which have almost reached their end – between Iran, Oman and other countries.”