Iran fury: uk risks being dragged into ‘war of century’

Mr Zarif tweeted: “Make no mistake. Having failed to lure Donald Trump into a War of the Century, and fearing collapse of his B Team, John Bolton is turning his venom against the UK in hopes

of dragging it into a quagmire.” The bellicose tweet comes as the UK and Iran are at loggerheads over seized oil tankers in the Gulf. Iran retaliated this week by taking a British oil

tanker and its crew into custody near the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf. John Bolton, White House national security adviser has been much more serious in his dealing with Iran than his

predecessor. He is widely held to be driving the US confrontation with Iran and encouraging Britain to follow suit. When Mr Bolton heard British Royal Marines had seized an Iranian oil

tanker off Gibraltar on America’s Independence Day, he tweeted: “Excellent news. The UK has detained the supertanker Grace I laden with Iranian oil bound for Syria in violation of EU

sanctions.” Mr Bolton’s current iron-fisted negotiating with Iran comes after his involvement in Iraq went disastrously wrong. READ MORE: IRAN ISSUES THREAT TO US AFTER STRIKE FORCE

DEPLOYMENT He was widely accused of massaging and manipulating secret intelligence to falsely bolster the case for the Iraq war. Mr Bolton pushed inaccurate US claims that Saddam Hussein

possessed and was ready to use weapons of mass destruction, claims infamously echoed by Britain’s the then prime minister Tony Blair, fatally discredited the strategy. The news of escalation

with Iran comes amid China’s growing ties with the Islamic Republic. China has investments in an Iranian nuclear project, but Beijing’s current high-stakes negotiations with the United

States has caused it to de-escalate its nuclear ambitions in Iran. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI), said on Wednesday that the Chinese were “reducing

the speed of cooperation despite their commitment” to redesign the Arak heavy water reactor. Salehi told the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency that China fears possible US sanctions on

its nuclear-related firms if it continues its cooperation with his country. He also urged China to re-engage with the project but insisted that Iran had “alternative choices” if it continued

to drag its feet.