A political power couple – mayor and deputy mayor of a wealthy town west of Paris – go on trial Monday on suspicion of hiding more than 13 million euros of ill-gotten assets, including two luxury villas, from the French state.

A Paris court will spend six weeks wading into the financial morass – shell companies in Panama and the Seychelles, bank accounts in Lichtenstein and Singapore, and Swiss trustees and loyal front men – that investigators say the couple used to hide over 13 million euros in assets.

The investigation into Patrick and Isabelle Balkany Les Républicains mayor and deputy mayor of Levallois-Perret, a wealthy town west of Paris began in 2013 after another corruption investigation into a former political ally turned up evidence of the couple’s financial manoeuvres

Two luxury properties are central to the investigation. 

The first, the Pamplemousse villa on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, was acquired by a Swiss trust in 1997. The couple initially denied owning the property, but Isabelle Balkany, 71, has now acknowledged that she bought it with an undeclared inheritance.

The second property, the Dar Gyucy Villa in Marrakech, is held by a Moroccan trust operated by Panamean company Hayridge, which is in the name of the couple’s right-hand man, Jean-Pierre Aubry.

The Balkanys denied that they are the real owners despite their regular visits. But they were found to be the “sole beneficiaries” of the home, where investigators found bathrobes embroidered with their initials.

The deception hid more than just a 2.75 million euro asset. Investigators found that the villa was paid for by Moroccan businessman Mohamed Al Jaber while he was negotiating a real-estate development deal in Levallois.

In another incident of corruption, a Panamean shell company paid 2.5 million euros to a Singaporean account. Investigators say the money is a commission paid to Patrick Balkany by a Belgian industrialist George Forrest for his help securing a mining contract in Namibia. Balkany denies the charges.

‘A network of offshore shell companies’

The Balkanys’ political lives have spanned four decades in their fiefdom in the Hauts-de-Seine, west of Paris.

Friends and foes have described Patrick and Isabelle, 70 and 71, as two parts of a whole. He is “the actor on stage”, and she is “the director”; He is the “marketer”, and she is “the back office”; He “the legs” and she “the head”.

Born one year apart after the war, they married in 1976. He, the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants gave theatre a go before joining the family textile business. She, born Isabelle Smadja, grew up in a family that made its fortune in rubber.

Together they launched a campaign for councilor-at-large in the Hauts-de-Seine and later for mayor of Levallois, which had been until their victory a communist enclave. He was elected at the same time Nicolas Sarkozy was elected mayor of neighboring Neuilly. Isabelle is godmother to Sarkozy’s son.

Patrick Balkany went on to serve simultaneously as a Les Républicains MP in the National Assembly.

But prosecutors say their criminal careers may be as long as their political ones.

While the trial will focus on the period from 2007 to 2014, investigators cooperated with European authorities to look much further back in the couple’s affairs, tracing bank accounts that migrated from Switzerland to Lichtenstein, Malta, and Singapore.

They were unable to trace all the assets, but judges say that Patrick Balkany was “the head of a network of offshore shell companies” put in place at the end of the 1980s (around the time he was first elected to the National Assembly).

Patrick Balkany admitted in 2016 that he had undeclared assets in Switzerland. He claims they are part of an inheritance.

They investigation also revealed that the couple spent significant sums of cash, including 87,000 euros paid to a travel agency.

The couple is accused jointly of fiscal fraud and “aggravated and habitual money laundering” and Patrick Balkany of “passive corruption” and “illegal taking of interest”.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

The United Nations Security Council’s decision to hold an informal meeting on Cameroon on May 13, 2019 gives momentum to international efforts to address the human rights crisis in the country’s Anglophone regions.

“Security Council members should call on the government of Cameroon and leaders of armed separatist groups to end abuses against civilians in the Anglophone regions and hold those responsible for abuse accountable,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “This meeting is an opportunity to remind abusers that the world is watching.”

Since late 2016, deadly violence has gripped the Anglophone regions of Cameroon, claiming the lives of 1,800 people and forcing half a million to flee their homes. Among the most at-risk groups are people with disabilities and older people who have faced violent attacks, abandonment, forced displacement, and problems getting humanitarian assistance.

Government forces have killed scores of civilians, torched hundreds of homes, and used torture and incommunicado detention with near total impunity. Armed separatists have assaulted and kidnapped dozens of people, including students and teachers, amid increasing attacks and growing calls for secession of the North-West and South-West regions.

Since late April, Human Rights Watch has documented more abuses, including killings and burning of homes.

On April 19, a stray bullet fired by soldiers killed a 72-year-old woman in her house in Mamfe, South-West region. Her son told Human Rights Watch that soldiers raided the neighborhood and started shooting indiscriminately: “Everyone fled, but my mother was too old to run. As she was near the window, a bullet went through and hit her on the right side of the chest. She died on the way to the hospital.”

On April 23, armed separatists killed Adam Assana, a gendarme, in Muyuka, South-West region. His body was found decapitated and dismembered the following day along the Muyuka-Kumba road. A local resident told Human Rights Watch: “He was not on duty. His car was stopped an ‘Amba’ [separatist] checkpoint. When he was identified as a gendarme, he was kidnapped and killed. The separatists had pierced his mouth with a wooden stick.”

On April 25, violence erupted in Bamenda, North-West region, after armed separatists dropped a human head, allegedly belonging to a soldier, at the Hospital Roundabout. Security forces responded by shooting along Commercial Avenue, forcing people to flee. A social worker from Bamenda told Human Rights Watch: “We heard gunshots by the soldiers from all angles. We had to lie on the floor for hours.” Accounts from a dozen residents and videos show that soldiers broke into deserted shops.

On April 27, soldiers from the Rapid Intervention Battalion stormed a health center in Wum, North-West region, looking for wounded separatists and beat some of the medical staff. A female nurse who was hit on her head and jaw said: “As they didn’t find any boys [separatists] they started beating us. I was hit so bad that I could not eat or swallow.” The health center remained closed until May 9.

On April 28, armed separatists kidnapped a 42-year-old man in Sabongari, North-West region. Witnesses and residents told Human Rights Watch that the man had gone to the separatists’ camp l4 kilometers from Sabongari to negotiate the release of a traditional chief who had been abducted. “He went there and was taken hostage instead, while the chief was released,” a resident said. The man managed to escape on May 8.

On April 30, soldiers killed a 16-year-old boy in Kikaikelaki village, North-West region. Three witnesses said that the security forces entered the village with military vehicles, including at least three armored cars, and started to shoot indiscriminately, causing people to run away.

Three witnesses and two family members told Human Rights Watch that soldiers shot him in the leg as he tried to flee, then executed him at a nearby roundabout. “They first shot him in the leg and then carried him to their vehicle,” one resident said. “They dropped him at the Tsenla roundabout and killed him with a bullet in the head. We buried him the same day at the Presbyterian church.”

Security forces also burned down and looted 11 homes in Kikaikelaki. A man whose home was torched told Human Rights Watch: “When the military came, I hid for safety. I watched them steal gallons of fuel from a store and set my entire compound on fire. All I had is gone.”

The recent violence is part of an increase in attacks on civilians since the beginning of 2019. Further human rights violations are likely if the government does not rein in its forces and armed separatist leaders do not give clear instructions to their fighters to stop abuse, Human Rights Watch said.

The informal Security Council meeting comes after months of international condemnation of the violence unfolding in the Anglophone regions, including by the UN high commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.

In the follow-up to this meeting, the UN Security Council should make Cameroon a formal item on its agenda and press authorities to investigate members of the security forces alleged to have carried out killings and destruction of property and prosecute those responsible. It should also publicly announce to armed separatist groups that their leaders will be held responsible for serious crimes committed by their fighters.

The council should consider imposing targeted sanctions against high-level people from both sides who bear responsibility for serious abuses.

The Cameroon government denied a Human Rights Watch researcher entry to the country on April 12, two days after Human Rights Watch published a short report on a deadly attack by soldiers, gendarmes, and members of the Rapid Intervention Battalion on a village in the North-West region. Bachelet visited Cameroon last week and raised the lack of access for both international and national human rights activists and humanitarian agencies.

“Cameroon’s move to block a human rights researcher and observers shows its determination to conceal its brutality,” Mudge said. “The UN Security Council should encourage the country to allow access to international human rights organizations and cooperate with them.”

Source: Human Rights Watch

The White House has contacted Swiss authorities to share a telephone number with Iran in hopes that Tehran will contact US President Donald Trump, CNN reports.

The White House contacted the Swiss on Thursday, the same day Trump publicly appealed to Iran to call him amid heightened tensions, the broadcaster cited a source as saying.

The source, however, said Iran was “highly unlikely” to demand the number from Swiss authorities.

The Swiss embassy represents US interests in Tehran, where Washington has had no mission since 1980.

While Trump called for talks on Thursday, he did not rule out military action against Iran.

Earliest this week, hawkish national security adviser John Bolton announced that the US was deploying an aircraft carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East in a bid to send a “message” to Iran.

Asked about the deployment decision on Thursday, Trump said Iran had been “very threatening.”

“We have information that you don’t want to know about. They were very threatening, and we just want to have — we have to have great security for this country,” Trump said.

On Friday, a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) stressed that Tehran would not engage in talks with the Americans.

IRGC’s deputy head for political affairs, Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, said the US thinks it can intimidate Iran into negotiations with a combination of military threats and sanctions, but to no avail. 

The senior military commander also said the US will not dare to wage a war on Iran despite its deployment of bombers and an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf.

In a further provocative move Friday, the Pentagon announced that it would deploy an amphibious assault ship and a Patriot missile battery to the Middle East to counter the “Iranian threat”.

Many observers have questioned the US administration’s sudden and vague assertions about Iran in the region, citing contradictory remarks made by US intelligence officials and politicians.

Iranian officials have also dismissed the allegations as part of the US administration’s “psychological warfare” against the country.

Speaking on Thursday, Iran’s envoy to the United Nations Takht Ravanchi slammed the Trump administration’s allegations of rising Iranian threats, saying they were based on “fake intelligence”.

Tensions rose after the US said last month that it would not renew waivers allowing Tehran’s eight largest customers to purchase oil from Iran in order to bring Iranian oil exports to zero.

Washington withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) last year and reimposed unilateral sanctions that had been lifted under the landmark 2015 agreement.

Iran on Wednesday informed the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany — the remaining five signatories to the deal — that it was suspending some of its commitments under the deal.

Tehran also gave the three European signatories 60 days to meet their commitments, especially in the banking and oil sectors, and guarantee Iran’s interests in the face of US sanctions.

US unilateralism

Countries affected by US sanctions have expressed discontent, citing tight market conditions and high fuel prices that harm oil-dependent industries.

Last month, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US decision to end sanctions waivers had even angered Washington’s allies.

“People are not happy. China is not happy, Turkey is not happy, Russia is not happy. France is not happy. US allies are not happy that this is happening and they say that they will find ways of resisting it,” said Zarif.

On Friday, Germany’s leading news weekly Der Spiegel published an article highlighting how Washington’s bid to pressure Iran had endangered Washington’s European allies, specifically Germany.

“Trump’s confrontational Middle Eastern policy has exacerbated the tensions between the US and its European allies, because, unlike the situation in Venezuela, Europe would be directly affected. The continent’s very security is at stake,” read the article.

“Washington is exacerbating regional tensions with its policy of applying maximum pressure on Iran,” Niels Annen, a high-ranking official at the German Foreign Ministry, told the publication.

Member of the German parliament with the Green Party and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee Jürgen Tritten said, “The US appears to be looking for a pretext to escalate the conflict with Iran.”

The paper also said the Europeans are in disarray in the face of Washington’s bid to pressurize Iran, with German foreign policy agreeing more with Tehran than its ally in Washington.

Deputy parliamentary group leader for the German SPD party, Rolf Mützenich, urged the German government to push for a UN Security Council resolution “requiring strict compliance with international law in the Middle East”.

The move, Mützenich said, will seek to counter US policies in the Middle East which disregard international law, notably in the case of Trump’s recent dealings over Palestine and Iran’s nuclear deal.

Source: Presstv

A senior Iranian diplomat says the Islamic Republic has put a “step-by-step” withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on the agenda.

“We have not left the JCPOA so far, but we have put such a move on our agenda and that would happen step-by-step,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Abbas Araqchi said in an interview on Wednesday.

“No country can accuse Iran of breaching or leaving the nuclear deal,” the diplomat noted, adding that all the measures Tehran has adopted so far, including Wednesday’s move, has been within the deal’s framework.

The ambassadors of the countries remaining in the nuclear deal — France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China — on Wednesday received a letter penned by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani elaborating the suspension of some of Iran’s commitments under the accord, officially called the JCPOA.

The letter was handed over by Araqchi to the ambassadors of the five countries, who had been invited to the Foreign Ministry. The document specifies the details of the decision taken by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which is chaired by Rouhani himself.

The document says Tehran has exercised utmost self-restraint and patience since Washington’s exit from the deal last May, and has given the remaining signatories “considerable” time at their own request to compensate for Washington’s withdrawal and guarantee Iran’s interests.

Nevertheless, the other parties have failed to adopt any “practical measures” to blunt the impact of the economic sanctions that were re-imposed against Tehran by the US following its withdrawal, the statement said.

The Islamic Republic is thus entitled to restore the balance between its rights and obligations under the JCPOA, and has no option but to “reduce its commitments” within the framework of the deal, it added.

At the current stage, the statement said, Iran will no longer consider itself committed to the limits agreed under the deal on its stocks of enriched uranium and heavy water stocks.

Under the JCPOA, Iran is allowed to keep 300 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 3.67 percent. The deal requires Tehran to sell off any enriched uranium above the limit on international markets in return for natural uranium.

Tehran’s stock of heavy water is also restricted to 130 tonnes under the deal, which also calls for Iran’s excess heavy water to be sold to a foreign buyer.

The council has given Iran’s partners in the deal “60 days to meet their commitments, especially in the banking and oil sectors,” said the statement.

If they fail to address Iran’s concerns, Tehran will suspend the implementation of two more commitments under the JCPOA, according to the statement.

In the next stage, Tehran will no longer be bound by its commitment to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent and will also begin developing its Arak heavy water reactor based on its pre-JCPOA plans, it added.

Source: Presstv

The U.S. military is training Cameroon’s military on first aid techniques and medical evacuation in order to reduce battlefield deaths. Cameroon estimates that one-fourth of all soldiers killed fighting separatists and Boko Haram terrorists could have been saved with better care.

Twenty-nine-year-old soldier Poumje Amidou has been getting treatment for fractures since last October at the military hospital in Yaounde.

Amidou said he barely escaped death when separatist fighters attacked his base, leaving one of his colleagues dead and two others wounded.

He said what he remembers is that he bled profusely and had serious wounds on his left leg, stomach and right arm.

Amidou’s life was saved when a Cameroon military helicopter rushed him to the hospital.

But others were not so lucky.

In recent years, about 117 soldiers have died from wounds that would not have been fatal had they received the correct first aid, according to Cameroon’s military.

That’s about one-fourth of all Cameroonian military deaths in the battles against English-speaking separatists and the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram.

Better care for the wounded

U.S. military advisers are working to prevent future deaths by training soldiers to provide better care for the wounded.

Major Mommearts, who did not give his first name, is one of the U.S. trainers.

He said the course on MEDEVAC – medical evacuation – includes evacuating casualties by air, known as CASEVAC.

“We talked about the different levels of CASEVAC, so you have your own legs, you can move the patient yourself, you have different pack bones that they can use. Make sure they are not bleeding while they are being transported.”

In February, the U.S. announced it was cutting some security assistance to Cameroon following allegations that Cameroon’s military was committing human rights violations.

The U.S. says despite the reduction in military aid, relations between the two countries are good.

The director of Cameroon’s military health, Colonel Abeng Mbozoo, said those ties are shown by the U.S. medical training.

He said the training is an indication that military cooperation between the U.S. and Cameroon is excellent. That is the reason the U.S. military has come to train their Cameroonian peers, said, Mbozoo, to save lives and prevent deaths in different battle grounds.

Thirty Cameroonian military staff received the U.S. training this week and will pass on the knowledge to their colleagues.

Source: VOA

United States President Donald Trump has granted full pardon to a former soldier who was convicted of killing an Iraqi prisoner.

Michael Behenna, who was sentenced to 15 years for the killing of Iraqi prisoner Ali Mansur Mohamed, was pardoned on Monday, according to a White House statement.

“Mr. Behenna’s case has attracted broad support from the military, Oklahoma elected officials, and the public,” read the statement.

The White House said that more than two-dozen generals and admirals, along with numerous Oklahoma officials, had expressed support for Behenna, an Oklahoma native.

The statement said that Behenna had been “a model prisoner.”

The move came specifically after Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter petitioned the Trump administration to pardon the convicted soldier.

Behenna deployed to Iraq as an army ranger of the 101st Airborne Division at the height of the US troop surge in the country. He led an infantry platoon of 18 men.

Following a deadly roadside bomb on a three-truck convoy, which Behenna was accompanying, north of Baghdad, Mansur was apprehended as a suspected al-Qaeda militant who may have helped carry out the attack.

Mansur was interrogated by the military but ultimately freed due to lacking evidence proving he had any role in the attack.

Behenna was ordered to transport Mansur back to his village to set him free.

The US soldier, however, decided to further “interrogate” Mansur. Behenna ultimately stripped the prisoner naked, interrogated him without authorization and killed him by shooting him twice.

“I stripped him naked to intimidate him,” Behenna later said about the ordeal during his trial.

“I told him I wanted more intelligence on local leaders of al-Qaeda, and that I wanted him to tell me about his stops in Saudi Arabia and Syria, and the [roadside] bomb explosion. But he kept saying, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ ”

Behenna killed Mansur by shooting him in the chest and head.

During court-martial, Behenna claimed that he had been protecting himself after the prisoner tried to grab his gun while being interrogated.

The Army, however, believed that the argument couldn’t be valid because Behenna had already been pointing his weapon at the prisoner before Mansur could’ve reached for his gun.

Behenna was consequently found guilty of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone and was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2009. The US Army Clemency and Parole Board reduced the sentence to 15 years a year later.

Five years ago, Behenna was given parole and started working in a ranch.

The US invasion of Iraq was carried out in 2003 under the pretext that the regime of Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). No such weapons, however, were ever found in Iraq.

More than one million Iraqis were killed as a result of the occupation and the subsequent occupation of the country, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.

The deteriorating security situation caused by the US occupation also lead to a surge of terrorism-related violence in the country, ultimately giving way to the formation of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

Source: Presstv

Sri Lanka’s police have announced that all the assailants involved in the deadly bomb attacks in the country last month have either been killed or arrested.

At least 257 people were killed and hundreds of others wounded as a series of bomb attacks hit churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on April 21.

Police chief Chandana Wickramaratne said in an audio statement that the dead militants included “two bomb experts.”

“We have seized the explosives they had stored for future attacks,” he added.

Wickramaratne — who was appointed by President Maithripala Sirisena as acting police chief last week after his predecessor was suspended over his failure to act on warnings about the attacks — said public life was slowly returning to normal with the lifting of curfews imposed after the bombings.

Public schools were reopened on Monday, but attendance fell to below 10 percent in many places amid fears of further attacks.

“We have strengthened security for all schools,” Wickramaratne stressed, adding, “We are also conducting a program to create awareness about safety and security in all schools.”

Wickramaratne did not specify the number of those detained over the attacks, but police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said on Monday that 73 people, including nine women, were being held.

The local group National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) has been blamed for the Easter Sunday attacks, but the Daesh terrorist group has also claimed the bombings.

Meanwhile, police said religious tensions have eased at the town of Negombo, north of Colombo, which suffered the highest death toll in the April 21 attacks.

The Roman Catholic Church appealed for calm after Christians attacked dozens of Muslim-owned businesses, homes, and vehicles in the town on Sunday night. Two people were reportedly arrested.

Source: Presstv

Cameroon needs a rapid and deep-rooted effort to tackle a crisis of violence that has erupted in several areas of the country, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Monday at the end of a visit to the West African country.

Violence has spilled over Cameroon’s borders from Nigeria, Chad and Central African Republic, while crackdowns on separatists in the southwest and Islamists in the northeast have caused long-running tensions to flare up, the U.N. has said.

Bachelet said the situation could spiral out of control and the challenges are immense, with ten or more separatist movements.

“I believe there is a clear – if possibly short – window of opportunity to arrest the crises that have led to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, as well as the killings and brutal human rights violations and abuses that have affected the northern and western areas of the country,” she said in a statement. “It will take significant actions on the part of the government, and substantial and sustained support from the international community – including us in the U.N.”

Cameroon was among the most settled countries in the region until a few years ago, but now villages have been burnt, civilians killed and mutilated, with children abducted and forced to join armed groups or used as unwitting suicide bombers.

Bachelet took part in three days of talks in Yaounde, including an in-depth discussion with President Paul Biya, and offered to help ensure that military operations respect human rights, which the statement said would help to win popular trust.

“If they fail to do that, they will not defeat an enemy that thrives on civilian mistrust of the authorities,” Bachelet said. “In the meantime, the civilians trapped between these two powerful, if asymmetric, opposing forces are increasingly vulnerable to lethal abuses and violations by both sides.”

She said the government had told her about steps to ensure that crimes committed by the armed forces are punished.

“This particular issue is damaging Cameroon’s international standing and undermining international support for efforts to combat the armed groups operating on its territory,” she said.

Source: Reuters

The United States is sending an aircraft carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East in a “clear and unmistakable” message to Iran, declared John Bolton, the hawkish US national security advisor.

“The United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the US Central Command region,” Bolton said in a Sunday statement.

The move, he said, is aimed at sending a “clear and unmistakable message” to Iran that “any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”

Bolton said the decision was “in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.”

He said the US “is not seeking war” with Iran, but it is “fully prepared to respond to any attack”, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) or regular Iranian forces, Bolton said in a statement.

Bolton did not provide any further details, but a US official said the forces “have been ordered to the region as a deterrence to what has been seen as potential preparations by Iranian forces and its proxies that may indicate possible attacks on US forces in the region.”

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the United States was not expecting any imminent attack on US forces, Reutersreported.

The move by the US comes as it had earlier vowed to cut Iran’s oil exports down to zero, prompting Tehran to warn that it will not allow any other country to export oil through the Strait of Hormuz if Tehran cannot sell its crude.

Meanwhile, the deployment seems to be a “regularly scheduled” one by the US Navy, and Bolton has just tried to talk it up.

Back on April 8, the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group (ABECSG) Public Affairs announced that the Strike Group has departed a naval station in Virginia on April 1 for “a regularly scheduled deployment.”

Therefore, what Bolton describes as a “response” to Iran’s warning does not seem to be genuine, as the ABECSG started its mission long before Iran’s warning.

Back on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran does not seek to escalate tensions with the United States, but it will not let Washington disrupt the security of Persian Gulf, the “lifeline of Iran”.

“We have been very clear that we have no interest in escalation,” Zarif said in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera TV.

“We have been clear that the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz are our lifeline. We depend on them for our livelihood, and we want them safe, secure, and free for navigation of all countries, including Iran,” he said.

“As we have stated before, Iran won’t permit the US to threaten the Persian Gulf,” the foreign minister added.

Last Sunday, Iran’s top military commander said Iran wants the strait — through which nearly one-third of all oil traded by sea passes — to remain open and secure, warning that the country will not allow anyone to destabilize the waters.

“As oil and commodities of other countries are passing through the Strait of Hormuz, ours are also moving through it,” said Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri.

Iran “will definitely confront anyone who attempts to destabilize the Strait of Hormuz, and if our crude is not to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, others’ [crude] will not pass either.”

The Iranian commander explained, “This does not mean [that we are going to] close the Strait of Hormuz. We do not intend to shut it unless the enemies’ hostile acts will leave us with no other option. We will be fully capable of closing it on that day.”

The US administration said in a statement on April 22 that buyers of Iranian oil must stop their purchases by May 1 or face sanctions. The move ended six months of waivers, which allowed Iran’s eight biggest buyers — Turkey, China, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan — to continue importing limited volumes.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump has contradicted his national security team on pushing for a military intervention against Venezuela, saying he and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin share the goal of a peaceful end to the crisis in the Central American nation.

“He is not looking at all to get involved in Venezuela, other than he’d like to see something positive happen for Venezuela, and I feel the same way. We want to get some humanitarian aid. Right now people are starving,” Trump told reporters on Friday.

Trump’s reference to Russia’s hands-off approach towards Venezuela stands in contrast to insistence by his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Russia is part of the problem in Caracas. Pompeo claimed earlier last week that President Nicolás Maduro was about to flee Venezuela until Russia persuaded him to stay.

In its description of the Trump-Putin conversation, the Kremlin said Putin stressed the need to respect Venezuelans’ right to determine their own future. He told Trump that outside interference in internal affairs and attempts at forceful regime change in Caracas undermine the prospects for a political settlement of the crisis.

Trump’s statement came shortly after acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and other senior officials, including his National Security Adviser John Bolton, reviewed options following a failed effort earlier in the week by Venezuelan opposition leaders to fuel an uprising.

Bolton signaled support last week for military intervention in Venezuela to oust embattled Maduro, a move that would pose a challenge for Trump, who has so far indicated a preference for and campaigned on scaling down existing military conflicts and avoiding new ones, according to local press reports.

While Trump has also emphasized that all options are on the table for Venezuela, Bolton has become the public face of any military campaign. On Friday, Bolton met with Pompeo and Shanahan at the Pentagon to discuss the situation in the Latin American nation.

“We want as our principle objective the peaceful transfer of power, but I will say again as the president has said from the outset … all options are on the table,” Bolton told reporters outside the White House on Tuesday when the street protests were underway.

A day later, Pompeo further told Fox Business Network that if military action is required, “that’s what the United States will do.”

Shanahan told reporters on Friday that he, Bolton and Pompeo were briefed that day by US Southern Command chief Adm. Craig Faller on his observations in the region.

“And then we went through a number of the … options that we have,” Shanahan said.

He, however, declined to provide details and gave no indication they made decisions to take any military action.

“We have a comprehensive set of options tailored to certain conditions, and I’m just going to leave it at that,” he said. Pressed to say whether the options include direct military intervention, he said, “I’ll leave that to your imagination. All options are on the table.”

The Friday session highlighted Trump administration’s effort to suggest the possibility of a military action, intending to increase public pressure on Maduro, though local press reports indicate that there appears to be little likelihood of direct US military intervention.

US claims Russia, China, Iran involved in Venezuela

Asked whether Venezuela poses a national security threat to the US that would justify using a military force, Shanahan then claimed that Russia, China and Iran are involved in Venezuela.

He then added, “Right now it’s about Maduro and his illegitimate regime, and Guaidó and making sure that the people of Venezuela have the environment and the conditions to correct for all these humanitarian shortcomings.”

Veteran Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina also wrote on Twitter, “Where is our aircraft carrier?” Asked to comment on that suggestion, Shanahan told reporters, “All (options) would include all.”

Reacting to the failed US-backed coup in Venezuela, Pompeo told Fox News on Thursday: “The military didn’t fracture in the way that we would hope, but it’s just a matter of time.”

“It’s the case that Maduro may rule for a little while longer, but he’s not going to govern. Structurally, there’s no way he stays in power. It’s time for him to leave, and we need the Cubans and the Russians to follow him out the door.”

Also attending the Faller briefing were Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Source: Presstv