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“I don’t consider Trump as a person worthy of exchanging messages with. I have no response for him and will not answer him,” Ali Khamenei told Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in footage of their meeting aired by state television on Thursday. The supreme leader made the remark when Abe told him he was carrying a […]

Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif tweeted Thursday that the “reported attacks on Japan-related” oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman took place while Japanese PM Shinzo Abe was meeting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired this morning,” Zarif tweeted. “Iran’s proposed Regional Dialogue Forum is imperative.”

Published:  06.13.19 , 13:31 Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt have expressed their “deep concern” over the chaotic situation in Libya and called for an immediate cease-fire in the country.   The foreign affairs ministers of the three countries, all neighboring Libya, held a meeting on Wednesday in Tunisia’s capital Tunis.   In a statement released overnight, […]

The base gave Iran an easy way to threaten the Straits of Hormuz and potentially cut off a fifth of the world’s oil supply. Seth J. Frantzman June 13, 2019 13:55 The alleged attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman occurred just forty miles off the coast of a secretive Iranian naval […]

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed hope that after the upcoming G20 forum in Japan, Moscow and Washington would be able to achieve constructive solutions that would create conditions for economic cooperation. “We really hope that common sense will finally prevail. I hope that, together with our partners, including US partners, we will […]

CHARLES BYBELEZER 06/13/2019 Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned of a “crushing response” to any U.S. military attacks, but qualified that his country was not seeking war with the “Great Satan.” Rouhani made his statements alongside visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is in Tehran to mediate between the Trump Administration and the Islamic Republic […]

Earlier, the Pentagon grounded Turkish pilots training aboard the F-35 and threatened to block deliveries of the advanced jet to Turkey, while Congress proposed slapping sanctions on Ankara over its S-400 purchase. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that ‘nobody’ is in a position to give Turkey ultimatums regarding its policy when asked to comment […]

CHARLES BYBELEZER 06/13/2019 Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu vowed to continue pre-emptively striking targets in Syria just hours after Israel allegedly fired missiles at a Syrian army base located near the shared border. “The chain of tests that we are dealing with is unending. We respond vigorously and with force to all attacks against us,” Netanyahu […]

A senior Russian diplomat has urged the US to stop using “methods of blatant blackmail and intimidation” aimed at forcing Iran out of a 2015 multilateral nuclear deal, saying Washington will be responsible if the accord collapses. In a statement published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website on Wednesday, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to […]

On June 13 a major incident involving two oil tankers took place in the Gulf of Oman off the Iranian port of Jask (بندر جاسک). This port also serves as an Iranian naval base and a center for drones and submarines. The two ships that were allegedly targeted were within 20 miles of Jask, according […]

First rocket fire in over a month came shortly after Israel closed the fishing zone off of the Gaza coast. Anna Ahronheim June 13, 2019 10:47 Israel struck Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip early Thursday morning after the launching of a rocket towards Israeli border communities. The IDF said fighter jets “attacked an underground […]