U.S. convoy brings threat of conflict

Press, 24 July 1987, Page 6

U.S. convoy brings threat of conflict

NZPA-Reuter Dubai Two Kuwaiti tankers moving quietly through the narrow Strait of Hor-

muz into the Gulf within Iranian missile range yesterday, escorted by three United States Navy ships, brought closer the possibility of a United StatesIran conflict.

The convoy headed into the Gulf for the two-day run to Kuwait with still no formal word from Iran on whether it would obey a United Nations Security Council order to end the war with Iraq and attacks against shipping. Iraq said it was ready to implement the council’s call for a cease-fire, but an official spokesman in Bagdad said this commitment was dependent on Iran’s “frank and documented acceptance” of the resolution.

Iranian media, meanwhile, reported a speech by President Ali Khamenei in which he said Iran would never accept Monday’s United Nation’s Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

“We will pursue the war until the elimination of the regime governing Iraq,” added President Khamenei, who said the resolution had been

conceived under United ?, States pressure. I Iran said yesterday the United States was seeking J political justification to in- | tervene in the Iran-Iraq war. “Any continued provo- g cation in the Gulf will be decisively answered. As ■ has been shown, the flag'll of no country will be the criterion of political con- 1 sideration," Teheran | Radio said. J With the United States convoy and the umbrella of war planes increasing | the possibility of a wider 3 conflagration, inter- § national oil markets were 7 jittery. Many oil analysts and traders said, any con- £ frontation between the United States and Iran in J the Gulf could raise the j price of Brent crude to between $25 and $4O a barrel from the present 3 $20.22. Rumours that Iran had blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, through which j one-sixth of the non-com-munist world’s oil passes, had unsettled financial markets, with stock and bond prices tumbling in 1 Tokyo.