{"id":199784,"date":"2019-12-26T09:17:11","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T09:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=199784"},"modified":"2019-12-29T09:26:50","modified_gmt":"2019-12-29T09:26:50","slug":"iran-to-conduct-naval-drills-with-china-and-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=199784","title":{"rendered":"Iran to conduct naval drills with China and Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nasser Karimi \u2013 MilitaryTimes.com Dec 25, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

The Iran Navy’s Damavand during a visit to southern Russia. The Damavand is currently being overhauled refitted with a VLS system, which will significantly add to its firepower. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Iran\u2019s armed forces will hold a joint, four-day naval exercise with Russia and China in the northern part of the Indian Ocean, a spokesman said Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The drill, which is to start on Saturday, will be the first such trilateral exercise as Tehran seeks to boost military cooperation with Beijing and Moscow amid unprecedented economic sanctions from Washington.<\/span><\/p>\n

Visits to Iran by Russian and Chinese naval representatives have also stepped up in recent years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iranian military spokesman Brig. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi<\/strong><\/span><\/a> said the joint maneuvers, which are aimed at promoting regional security, will extend as far as the Gulf of Oman<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The drill is seen as a response to recent U.S. maneuvers with its regional ally Saudi Arabia, in which China also participated.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the wake of recent escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf, including attacks on oil vessels and a missile-and-drone assault on the Saudi oil industry, the U.S. has sent a number of American troops to the region and additional missile defense systems to Saudi Arabia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Washington alleges that Iran carried out the September attack on the world\u2019s largest oil processor in the kingdom and an oil field, which caused oil prices to spike by the biggest percentage since the 1991 Gulf War.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Yemen\u2019s Iranian-allied Houthi rebels<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>claimed credit for the assault, Saudi Arabia said it was \u201cunquestionably sponsored by Iran.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Iran has denied this and warned that any retaliatory attack targeting it would result in an “all-out war.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Tehran, meanwhile, has also begun enriching uranium beyond the terms of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from over a year ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2017, Iran conducted a joint naval exercise with China near the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, a passageway for nearly a third of all oil traded by sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The joint naval drills with Russia and China are no doubt also intended as a clear warning to the U.S. Will Trump take heed? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78,51,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-Iran","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199784"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199811,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199784\/revisions\/199811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}