South Korea Calls Iran 'Biggest Threat, Enemy' Of UAE
The President of South Korea says the enemy of the United Arab Emirates and its biggest threat is Iran while South’s enemy is North Korea.
The President of South Korea says the enemy of the United Arab Emirates and its biggest threat is Iran while South’s enemy is North Korea.
According to the Arabic service of Yonhap News Agency, Yoon Suk Yeol said during his visit to the UAE Sunday that "the security of the UAE, which is our sister nation, is our security".
He added that the two countries are in a very similar situation as both face dangerous enemies.
The president of South Korea has travelled to the Arab country on a four-day official visit upon the invitation of Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of the United Arab Emirates.
It seems that this is the first time South Korea calls the Islamic Republic "the enemy and the biggest threat" to the security of the UAE.
Seoul's relations with Tehran, except for the issue of seven billion dollars frozen in Korean banks due to US sanctions, were usually considered to be normal and far from tension.
Yoon Suk Yeol is not the first leader of a Asian country who has openly adopted positions that conflict with Iran's national interests and possibly a kind of turn in his country's policy.
Chinese President Xi Jinping also visited Saudi Arabia in December and met members of the Gulf Cooperation Council. He signed a joint statement in which the issue of three Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf was mentioned as a claim pursued by the United Arab Emirates.
According to the new information, five individuals were the main members of a hit squad from the Quds Force Unit 400 of the IRGC, who sought to kill Itsik Moshe, a prominent businessman and the chairman of Israel Georgia Chamber of Business. Hacker group Backdoor (3ackd0or) provided Iran International with documents about their identities, place of residence, etc.
The five agents were Hossein Rohban, Mohammad-Reza Arablou, Mohsen Rafiei Miandashti, Farhad Fashaee and Ali Feizipour.
Moshe is also the chairman of Israeli House, the organization concentrated on public diplomacy for Israel in Eastern Europe, tasked with communicating directly with citizens of other countries to inform and influence them so that they support the Israeli government's strategic objectives.
Unit 400 of the Quds Force -- a division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations – planned assassination of some Israeli officials in several countries, and a Pakistani team affiliated with al-Qaeda was tasked with gathering information in the operation in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
The operation was revealed when Georgian security forces noticed the suspicious activity of a member of the Pakistani team. The State Security Service of Georgia released a statement in mid-November saying that two Iranian-Georgian citizens -- Miandashti and Fashaee -- who were responsible for providing weapons for the assassination were arrested. They were cooperating with an arms smuggler in Turkey.
Georgia also said the one who ordered the murder – Rohban – was outside Georgia. According to data leaked by the 3ackd0or, he is residing in the northwestern city of Orumiyeh (Urmia). Arablou was also responsible for coordinating the team and is reportedly living in the city of Zanjan.
The leader of the team – Rohban -- was under the direct command of Hamed Abdollahi, the head of the Unit 400 who is wanted internationally following the disclosure of an assassination plot targeting Adel al-Jubeir, the former ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States from 2007 to 2015. Abdollahi, who used to serve as the IRGC commander in Zahedan and also served as a deputy to slain Quds commander Qassem Soleimani, is also sanctioned by the US following the failed assassination.
Most of the members of the Quds Force Unit 400 of the IRGC were former comrades of Soleimani in the 41st Tharallah Division in Kerman, who later gathered under the title of Haj Qassem's guys. Soleimani – who was killed by a US air strike on January 3, 2020 -- was in charge of supporting and organizing militant proxy forces, including the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militia groups that were repeatedly attacking US forces in Iraq and elsewhere.
The news from Georgia came months after Israeli and Turkish intelligence agencies worked together to stop an Iranian plot to assassinate Israeli tourists in Istanbul. Jerusalem warned Israelis not to visit Turkey in June, and soon after, Turkey arrested eight members of an Iranian cell in hotel rooms in a popular tourist district, with weapons and ammunition.
In October 2021, Cyprus foiled an Iranian plotto attack Israelis, including billionaire Teddy Sagi, which Tehran denied. Cypriot authorities arrested a Russian-Azeri man who had a loaded pistol with a silencer in his rental car.
In recent years, there are numerous reports about assassinations of Iranian military commanders and sabotage attacks in Iranian industrial complexes, attributed to Israel, as well as numerous failed attempts to assassinate or kidnap Israeli officials in many countries. Iranian officials claim that they have dealt serious blows to Israel, but they cannot announce them due to confidentiality.
Tehran announced on Saturday that it executed the former deputy defense minister, Alireza Akbari, after sentencing him to death on charges of spying for Britain’s MI6.
Before his death, an audio file was leaked where he claimed to have been tortured for 3,500 hours. Akbari said in the tape the regime had forced him to confess to crimes he had not committed.
Following the execution, The Sunday Telegraph said the UK is reconsidering its support for the 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA, dealing another blow to the chances of reviving the accord. Britain has been a key player in the talks on restoring the Obama-era deal, abandoned by former US President Donald Trump.
The Sunday Telegraph cited senior – but unnamed -- British government sources as saying that the “landscape” has changed significantly since negotiations began in 2021, and as such Britain is now reviewing its options regarding its future involvement in renewing the deal.
“During the time we have been dealing with it, the landscape and proposition has completely changed – largely because of the behavior of the Iranian regime,” a government source said. The sources pointed out that the relationship with Tehran has been under severe strain in recent months due to its brutal repression of protests, ignited by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini. Meanwhile, Downing Street said “all options are under review” following the execution of Akbari.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has also announced a series of measures in response to the execution, including sanctioning the regime’s prosecutor general and summoning Iran’s charge d’affaires to convey Britain’s “disgust”. He said the sanctions show that the UK is serious about holding Iran to account for its “appalling human rights violations”.
The British ambassador to Iran has also been temporarily recalled to the UK for urgent talks about possible next steps. Cleverly is also set to travel to Washington DC on Monday for talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken where the two will discuss Iran.
On Saturday, Rishi Sunak accused the regime of a “callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people”.
Ramin Forghani, Akbari’s nephew who fled to Luxembourg because of his opposition to the regime, has said that continuing the discussions with Iran would be “unthinkable”.
Britain is already drawing up plans to proscribe Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.
Britain has also received support from the United States, France and Germany, all signatories of the JCPOA, in its condemnation of the execution.
Since negotiations to revive the nuclear deal or JCPOA broke down in September, the Biden administration and its European allies have put the talks on the backburner and even President Joe Biden said in early November that “JCPOA is dead.”
Akbari’s execution is a major escalation in tensions between the West and the Islamic Republic, which were already sour over Tehran’s crackdown on nationwide antigovernment protests and its military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Akbari had been deputy defense minister under the reformist President Mohammad Khatami, from 1997 to 2005. He was an advocate of the Iran nuclear deal known as the JCPOA that was eventually signed in 2015 with world powers.
He was also close to Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran. A source close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has provided information to Iran International showing that the execution of Akbari is aimed at weakening Shamkhani’s position in the clerical regime. It seems that President Ebrahim Raisi, Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib and Interior Minister Ahmed Vahidi are exerting pressure to remove Shamkhani from the post.
