Gulf war reaches fateful stage—lran

Press, 2 June 1984, Page 10

Gulf war reaches fateful stage—lran

NZPA-Reuter Bahrain Iraq reported its Air Force had successfully raided two Iranian oil installations yesterday, while a prominent Iranian leader was quoted as saying the Gulf war had reached a highly fateful stage. An Iraqi military spokesman announced on Bagdad television that the oil refinery at Tabriz in north-west Iran and an oil pumping station in the Khorramabad area had been hit “accurately and effectively” in two attacks. He gave no details of damage caused by the attacks, but said an Iraqi aircraft was lost in the Tabriz raid. In Iran, the Speaker of the Majlis, Hojatoleslam Hashemi Rafsanjani, was quoted by Teheran Radio as saying the 44-month-old war had reached a “sensitive and highly fateful stage.” “The operations which are to take place on the battlefields will determine the fate of the war,” Teheran Radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation, quoted him as telling artillery and air defence personnel. Diplomats in Teheran speculated that Iran would launch a new ground offen-

sive, with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan which began yesterday tipped as a starting date because of its religious connotations. Teheran Radio also quoted Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani as saying that if America tried to intervene in the Gulf, “our people will go to the Persian Gulf in groups and make it insecure.” “If we decide to damage the Persian Gulf oil installations, we shall do so in such a way that they would not be able to rebuild them in the near future,” he said.

The United States is pledged to maintaining freedom of navigation in the Gulf, which Iran has threatened to block if its oil exports are cut off. Iraq’s Baath Party newspaper “Al-Thawra” said that Bagdad would destroy Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal in the northern part of the Gulf if Teheran launched a fresh Gulf war offensive and refused to seek a peaceful end to the conflict. Diplomats in Teheran said Iraqi aircraft would meet ground-to-air Hawk missiles and face a difficult if not impossible task if they tried to destroy the Kharg terminal. Meanwhile, shipping and oil trade sources said at least two tankers chartered by Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation were running the gauntlet to lift oil from Iran despite reports, later denied, that one of them had been hit on Wednesday. In Washington, President Ronald Reagan said Iran must shoulder a greater part of the blame than Iraq for the escalated attacks on Gulf shipping. He said Iraq had confined its attacks to shipping that was vital to Iran’s economy, but that Iran had countered with assaults on neutral ships doing business with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. “I think we’ve always recognised that in a time of war, the enemy’s commerce and trade is a fair target, if you can hurt them economically. So, in that sense, Iraq had not gone beyond the bounds, as Iran had done,” Mr Reagan said in an interview with European, Canadian and Japanese television reporters. He expressed optimism that the worst may be over and the situation was about to right itself. “If you look at the last few days, it appears that, rather than getting worse, the situation has quietened somewhat. I don’t believe there have been any attacks tc speak of, in the last several days. So. maybe it’s going to turn out all right,” he said.