Dubai, May 26 (AP) Iran on Tuesday denounced the most recent US strikes as a sign of “bad faith and unreliability” as negotiations pressed on toward a possible deal to end the war, and the Islamic Republic began restoring internet access after a national shutdown that began in January.
The US military characterised Monday's strikes in southern Iran as defensive, saying targets included missile launch sites and minelaying boats, and said the US acted with “restraint" in light of the weekslong ceasefire.
Iran's foreign ministry called the strikes a ceasefire violation and warned that Washington would bear responsibility for “all consequences”, without elaborating.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered,” it added in a statement.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard said Tuesday that it had shot down and deterred drones and a fighter jet that entered its airspace, according to Iran's official Mizan news agency, which did not specify when the incidents occurred.
Iran's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, used a statement about Islam's annual Hajj pilgrimage to herald his country's confrontation with the US and Israel, declaring that other Mideast countries “will no longer serve as a shield” for US military bases.
Iran has previously complained about US military facilities in the region and targeted them.
It was not immediately clear what the developments would mean for negotiations. The strikes came after Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf went to Qatar as part of the talks, which US President Donald Trump said Monday were “proceeding nicely”.
Iranian state TV reported Tuesday that Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left Qatar. The report did not elaborate or point to any next steps.
Meanwhile, Iranian authorities eased a monthslong internet shutdown that they cast as a wartime necessity, but that has cost the country's economy an estimated USD 30 million to USD 40 million a day. Internet users reported that access was gradually being restored.
The US strikes were the latest flare-up in the fragile ceasefire that began April 7 and has largely held.
Negotiations centre in part on the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway off southern Iran through which a fifth of the world's crude oil and natural gas passed before the war began with US-Israeli strikes in February.
Tehran retaliated by effectively closing the strait, stranding hundreds of ships and shocking the global economy.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre said an explosion was reported Tuesday aboard a tanker in the Gulf of Oman, which lies near the strait. No one was injured, and there was no immediate information on the cause.
Besides disrupting energy markets, the strait's closure is also squeezing fertiliser supplies worldwide. The full impact might not become clear until harvests that are months away.
UN Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Qu Dongyu, warned Tuesday at an event in Rome that “the decisions we make now will determine whether this remains a manageable shock or evolves into a deeper global food security crisis in 2026 and 2027 and beyond".
The strait has become a powerful lever for Tehran in talks, joining the long-running issue of Iran's nuclear program and its highly enriched uranium. Iran wants the US to lift its military blockade of Iranian ports that began on April 17.
“What we are witnessing today is not only a geopolitical crisis. It is a systemic shock" to the global agriculture and food system, Qu said Tuesday.
Trump has introduced a new angle in negotiations for a deal on the war, saying any agreement should include a requirement for several additional countries, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, to join the Abraham Accords.
They are a series of US-brokered diplomatic, economic and security agreements aimed at normalizing relations with Israel.
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates became the first countries to join in 2020. Sudan, Morocco and Kazakhstan have followed. Egypt and Jordan already formally recognise Israel and have long-standing peace treaties. Turkey first recognised Israel in 1949.
Israel's conduct against Palestinians, including in the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, has alienated Gulf Arab states and the wider Muslim world, but Trump has been keen to build on the Abraham Accords, forged during his first term. He has even suggested that Iran eventually could sign on. (AP) SCY
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