Iran warns of 'fierce response' to attacks

Source: Agencies  |   2008-7-3  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

WITH Middle East tensions building, Iran's oil minister warned yesterday that an attack on his country would provoke a fierce response "that nobody can imagine."

Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said, however, that Tehran would not cut oil deliveries and would continue supplying the market even if struck by Israel or the United States.

Tehran "is not going to be quiet" if attacked, Nozari told reporters. It's "going to react fiercely, and nobody can imagine what would be the reaction of Iran," he added.

He did not elaborate. But over the weekend, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards warned that Tehran would respond to any attack by barraging Israel with missiles and could seize control of a key oil passageway in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz.

A senior US military commander said, however, that Washington would not permit that to happen.

Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the 5th Fleet spoke to reporters after talks with naval commanders of Gulf countries in the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi. The one-day meeting was to focus on the security of the region's maritime and trade routes and the threat of terrorism.

The 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain, across the Gulf from Iran. Cosgriff said that if Iran choked off the Strait of Hormuz, it would be "saying to the world that 40 percent of oil is now held hostage by a single country."

"We will not allow Iran to close it," he said.

Minister Nozari addressed rising tensions outside the 19th World Petroleum Congress after a presentation on Iran's oil and gas industry to a packed audience, including representatives of European and US energy companies.