Word: arabia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...days, of the devastating tanker war in the Persian Gulf. Twenty-four hours after he spoke, Iraq announced that it had hit two "naval targets" to the southeast of Kharg Island. Iran responded almost immediately by striking and heavily damaging a Liberian-registered tanker, the Chemical Venture, off Saudi Arabia. Next day Iraq claimed to have struck and destroyed a convoy of eight coastal freighters off Iran at the northern end of the gulf...
...reaction to the latest attacks on tankers, Lloyd's of London once again increased rates on vessels using the gulf, this time more than doubling the fee (from 3% to 7.5% of value) for ships sailing to Kharg Island. In Geneva, Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister, Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, declared: "What we are afraid of is that Lloyd's might cancel insurance for navigation in the gulf, and this would be equal to closing the Strait of Hormuz." Lloyd's denied the likelihood of such a cancellation. In any event, the world, and particularly...
...Washington, President Reagan wrote to Saudi Arabia's King Fahd to emphasize the Administration's continuing support of Saudi Arabia and its commitment to freedom of navigation in the gulf. The President said the U.S. would back this up with military aid if requested to do so by the Saudis and their allies. The Saudis temporized, grateful for the show of support but reluctant to do anything that might further antagonize Iran's Khomeini. Apparently for the same reason, Saudi warplanes have refrained from engaging in combat with the Iranian aircraft that have attacked the gulf tankers...
...gulf states were slow to react to the tanker attacks. The foreign ministers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates) met in Riyadh. But after almost five hours of talks, the ministers merely condemned the Iranian attacks and said they would appeal to the United Nations Security Council and the Arab League. Extreme caution dominates the thinking of even the most powerful of the gulf nations, Saudi Arabia. Before the Iranian attackers hit the Saudi tanker off Ras Tanura last week, a U.S.-operated AWACS radar plane detected...
...struggle. Having finally repulsed the Iraqi invaders with tremendous casualties on both sides, the Iranians have tarried for months without launching their long-threatened "final offensive." Iraq is desperate to end the war it started; Iran is determined to destroy Saddam Hussein at any cost; and Saudi Arabia is terrified of a possible Iranian victory. That adds up to a bad formula for peace. Thus, while insurance rates climb and world oil prices quiver, the tanker war is likely to go on. Summarizing his country's new policy, the leader of Iran's parliament, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani...