Securing Vital Waterways

Iran, Russia, China Launch Drills in Indian Ocean

TEHRAN (Kayhan Intl.) -- Russia, China and Iran launched their first joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean on Friday, in what Moscow said was an unprecedented exercise in naval cooperation and training.

Waters around Iran have become a focus for international tensions, with the United States exerting pressure for Iranian crude oil sales and other trade ties to be cut off and sending additional troops and warships to the Persian Gulf.

The four-day exercise, launched from the southeastern port city of Chahbahar in the Gulf of Oman and near the border with Pakistan, is aimed at boosting security of the region’s waterways, Iran’s navy chief Adm. Hussein Khanzadi said.

"Our joint military drills in Oman Sea/Indian Ocean w/ our Russian & Chinese partners make clear our broader commitment to secure vital waterways,” Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif tweeted.

The drills include rescuing ships on fire or vessels under attack by pirates and shooting exercises, with both Iran’s navy and its Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) participating.

The Gulf of Oman is a particularly sensitive waterway as it connects to the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil passes and which in turn connects to the Persian Gulf.

Washington proposed a U.S.-led naval mission following several suspicious attacks in May and June on international merchant vessels, in Persian Gulf waters which Iran denounced as "false flag” operations.

Washington used the attacks which it blamed on Iran without any evidence as a pretext to deploy new troops and warships to the region, with President Donald Trump making it clear that Saudi Arabia would pay "100 percent of the cost”.

Trump last year pulled the United States out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six nations and reimposed sanctions on the country.

Visits to Iran by Russian and Chinese naval representatives have also increased in recent years.

China said on Thursday it was sending a guided missile destroyer to the drills, which it called a "normal military exchange” between the three armed forces.

"It is not necessarily connected with the regional situation,” a Chinese defense ministry spokesman said.

China has close diplomatic, trade and energy ties with Iran, which has friendly ties with Russia.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Friday it had sent three ships from its Baltic Fleet - a frigate, a tanker and a rescue tug boat - to take part in the drills, Red Star, the official newspaper of Russia’s armed forces, reported.

The ministry was cited as saying that it was the first time that such drills were being held in such a format.

Jonathan Eyal, associate director at the Royal United Services Institute, said the initiative had been choreographed by the three countries to send a message that U.S. influence in the region is waning.

"This is a carefully calculated exercise in which all three participants are winners: Iran gets to claim it is a regional power, Russia demonstrates its role as the key actor in the Middle East, and China can show it is a global naval power,” Eyal said. "The strategic message is that these are the countries shaping events in the Middle East.”

The drills, which will include tactical exercises such as rescuing frigates under attack, began in the port city of Chabahar in southeastern Iran and are due to continue in northern parts of the Indian Ocean.

Russia said the joint exercises were legal and focused on ensuring regional stability. "We are dealing with the issues of maintaining stability in the region, security and the fight against terrorism,” said Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry. "This cooperation and interaction is built on both a bilateral and multilateral basis, but exclusively on a legal basis.”

The drills come after a U.S. naval coalition of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched operations in the Gulf of Oman in November. The UK and Australia have also agreed to send warships.

"The most important achievement of these drills . . . is this message that the Islamic Republic of Iran cannot be isolated,” Vice-Admiral Gholamreza Tahani, a deputy naval commander, said. "These exercises show that relations between Iran, Russia and China have reached a new high level while this trend will continue in the coming years.”

Mojtaba Zonnour, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, hailed the drills as an indication of Iran’s success in multilateral military cooperation despite U.S. attempts to isolate the country.

Zonnour added that Washington has failed at its "military diplomacy” and that it will grow weaker in the future.

"Holding a joint exercise between Iran, China and Russia is a very terrifying measure for the U.S. and the west which seek to create a military coalition against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said.

Amid Washington’s bolstered regional deployments and military provocations targeting Tehran, Iran shot down an American spy drone for violating its airspace near the strait of Hormuz in June.

The Russian, Chinese and Iranian exercises are being conducted near the Strait of Hormuz, one of two choke points for tankers travelling between Iran and China. China imports about half of its annual crude oil requirement, and last year Iran was its seventh largest supplier.

After the joint exercises conclude, Zarif is due to visit Moscow on Monday for further discussions with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on "the development of ties in the trade, economic, humanitarian and other practical fields”, said Russia’s foreign ministry.