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TEHRAN: Iran\u2019s currency fell to a new record low on Tuesday, with traders in Tehran exchanging more than 2.5 million rials to the US dollar in a stark reflection of how the war in the Middle East has steadily eroded the Iranian economy.<\/p>\n
The latest decline came just 27 days after the rial hit its previous record low of 2.2 million to the dollar on Sept. 2. The currency has repeatedly reached new lows since the war began in February.<\/p>\n
The Iranian economy has been under duress for years in the face of international sanctions. But a US naval blockade on Iranian oil and new sanctions imposed since the start of the war have sent it into free fall.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Iran\u2019s top diplomat said indirect negotiations with the United States aimed at reopening the critical Strait of Hormuz have become \u201cmore serious,\u201d while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps\u2019 chief spokesman Gen. Hossein Mohebbi on Tuesday called on Americans to take to the streets and protest the conflict.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s top diplomat raises the prospect of new talks<\/strong><\/p>\n Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iranian media late on Monday that the \u201ccurrent focus is solely on the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d the chokepoint of the war.<\/p>\n Araghchi made the comments shortly before departing New York \u2014 where he attended last week\u2019s gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly \u2014 and after meeting with Pakistani and Qatari mediators.<\/p>\n Araghchi said the Qatari intermediaries were expected to soon engage with the US side.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are set to raise the matter with the American side once more, after which the final US response will be conveyed to us,\u201d Araghchi said. \u201cIf there is a response, the Qataris will convey it to us and a decision will be made in Tehran on that basis.\u201d<\/p>\n Officials, including from the US, have confirmed to The Associated Press that mediators are working with Iran and the US on trying to broker a deal to end the fighting and open the strait.<\/p>\n The mediation efforts continue even after US President Donald Trump earlier this week spurned an Iranian proposal to reopen the strait in seven days if the US agreed to lift its blockade of Iranian ports, release frozen Iranian assets and waive sanctions on Iranian oil sales, among other conditions.<\/p>\n Tensions in the Strait of Hormuz were underscored by a report Tuesday that a cargo vessel was struck by an \u201cunknown projectile\u201d while moving through the strait on Monday. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said it had received a delayed report from a third party.<\/p>\n The strike caused a fire on board that was extinguished, UKMTO said, and all crew members were reported safe, UKMTO said. The vessel, which wasn\u2019t identified, continued on its way, the report said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.<\/p>\n US targets Iran\u2019s military supply chain with new sanctions<\/strong><\/p>\n The Trump administration said Tuesday that 10 individuals and entities based in Iran, Hong Kong and Pakistan now face sanctions over accusations of procuring weapons and weapon components for Iran\u2019s defense ministry as it fights its now seven-month war against the US<\/p>\n The United States is targeting people and companies around the globe that it accuses of being financial facilitators or enablers of Iran\u2019s military supply chain, pushing ahead with economic warfare against Tehran at a time when renewed diplomacy between the two countries remains uncertain.<\/p>\n The latest action by the Treasury Department is part of the administration\u2019s \u201cOperation Economic Outcast\u201d campaign, aimed at severing \u201ccritical financial lifelines\u201d for the already heavily sanctioned Iranian government.<\/p>\n \u201cTreasury will not tolerate any support to the regime and will continue to identify, expose, and isolate Iran\u2019s enablers,\u201d Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.<\/p>\n Iran sends a provocative message to the US public<\/strong><\/p>\n The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps on Tuesday made an appeal to everyday Americans to push their government to end the US war against Iran, a provocative message that comes just weeks before critical midterm elections in the United States.<\/p>\n Mohebbi, the Guard spokesman, read a letter during a news conference in Iran\u2019s capital, Tehran, appealing to Americans to pressure their government and claiming that the only way for the war to end is for Washington to admit defeat and leave the Mideast.<\/p>\n Mohebbi\u2019s remarks come as Trump\u2019s Republican Party faces fierce headwinds as it looks to maintain control of Congress. But polling shows the war has darkened the American electorate\u2019s mood ahead of the Nov. 3 election in which elevated gasoline prices, a byproduct of the conflict, loom large.<\/p>\n Mohebbi also accused the US of using Iran\u2019s nuclear program as a ruse to \u201cplunder Iran\u2019s wealth\u201d and to turn the country \u201cback into a colony.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that the US and others failed in their belief that military and economic action would get Tehran to submit and that Washington \u201chas no choice but to acknowledge defeat and leave the region.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is how the war will end,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Trump and his top aides are insistent that Iran\u2019s economy cannot sustain a conflict much longer and have expressed confidence that Tehran will be forced to capitulate.<\/p>\n The US president predicted soon after launching the war that the conflict would last a matter of weeks. More recently, he\u2019s said that the war will likely end after the November elections in the US<\/p>\n US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a Monday appearance on Fox News said Iran was heading toward an economic \u201ccataclysm.\u201d Administration officials say that a combination of new sanctions and a US naval blockade aimed at preventing Iranian oil from going to market are having the intended effect.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so when you\u2019re denying them money through oil sales and sanctions, you\u2019re not just punishing them,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cYou are preventing them from getting access to money that they will use to try and kill Americans and others around the world and their own people and build weapons and threaten the world and ultimately break out to a nuclear weapon program.\u201d<\/p>\n Major Saudi pipeline is once again operating<\/strong><\/p>\n In a separate development, a crucial oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia that was shuttered by the kingdom earlier this month after coming under attack is once again operating, according to a Saudi government official.<\/p>\n The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said operations are near pre-attack levels and that the pipeline should be running at full capacity within a few weeks.<\/p>\n The kingdom relies on the East-West Pipeline, which runs the breadth of the country, to move its crude from oil processing facilities on the Gulf to ports on its western, Red Sea coast. From there it can be put on tankers for export.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia blamed an Iran-backed militia in Iraq for the drone attack that forced the temporary shutdown of the 1,200-kilomeer (745-mile) pipeline.<\/p>\n Satellite imagery indicated tankers on Sunday loaded some 12.5 million barrels of oil at the Yanbu export terminal, which is supplied by the East-West Pipeline, and the nearby terminal at Al Muajjiz, the data and analytical firm Kpler said in a report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n