Iran Threatens To Stop Flow of Oil





Iranian official: UN sanctions may lead us to seal off Persian Gulf 

By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent 

A senior Iranian official threatened that Tehran may forcibly prevent 
oil export via the Straits of Hormuz if the UN imposed economic sanctions 
due to Iran's nuclear program, an Iranian news Web site said on Monday.

This is the first time an Iranian official makes military threats in a
public statement on Tehran's recent disagreements with the West. 

The news site, affiliated with the radical student movement in which
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was once a member, quoted Mohammed-Nabi
Rudaki, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security 
and Foreign Policy Commission. 

According to the report, Rudaki said that "if Europe does not act 
wisely with the Iranian nuclear portfolio and it is referred to the UN 
Security Council and economic or air travel restrictions are imposed unjustly, 
we have the power to halt oil supply to the last drop from the shores of 
the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz."

25% of the world's oil production passes through the Straits of Hormuz,
which connect the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean. The meaning of
Rudaki's threat is that not only will Tehran stop its oil production 
from reaching the West, it may also use force to prevent the other oil 
prodoucers in the region (the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait) from exporting to 
the West. 

Raduki also warned that his country might quit from its membership in 
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and withdraw from the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). 

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