Yahoo Finance Iran summons Emirati envoy over killing of 2 fishermen
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday it summoned the United Arab Emirates envoy after Emirati Coast Guard vessels shot at several Iranian fishing boats, killing two fishermen.
The ministry said in a statement that Iran expressed its anger to the UAE's charge d’affaires in Tehran on Tuesday, a day after the incident.
On Monday, the UAE's Coast Guard opened fire on some Iranian fishing boats, killing two anglers, and seized one of the vessels and detained the fishermen, according to Iran.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry urged the Emirati envoy to release the detained fishermen and lift the seizure of the boat and deliver the bodies of the two killed. It also demanded compensation and that appropriate measures be taken to prevent such incidents in the future.
Emirati officials and state media did not immediately acknowledge their diplomat being summoned in Tehran.
On Monday, the Emirates’ state-run WAM news agency reported that eight fishing boats illegally entered UAE waters near Sir Bu Nair Island in the Persian Gulf. The WAM report said the boats did not stop when ordered to and “rules of engagement were applied,” without elaborating on what that meant.
Meanwhile, Iran on Monday seized an Emirati ship it said was illegally in Iranian waters and detained the crew.
The tensions come as the Trump administration is set on Thursday to demand the restoration of all international sanctions on Iran in a move that will further isolate the United States at the United Nations.
Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a phone conversation with the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, urged him and the members of the Security Council to resist U.S. pressure. He pointed out that President Donald Trump withdrew America from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and now has no authority to demand that U.N. sanctions be reimposed.
This would have dangerous consequences for international law, “it will bring nothing but the destruction of international mechanisms and it will discredit the Security Council,” Zarif said.
