Fears of imminent war between Iran and the United States have sparked following the US’ assassination of Iran’s top military commander Qassem Soleimani in an air raid at Baghdad’s international airport on January 3.
In retaliation, Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at the Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq’s Anbar province and a military facility in Erbil on Wednesday.
Hours later, a Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 bound for Kyiv crashed minutes after takeoff from the Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran, adding to the tension.
Canadian, US and UK officials have said intelligence indicated that an Iranian missile brought down the airliner, a conclusion dismissed by Iran.
“All these reports are a psychological warfare against Iran,” Iranian state TV quoted government spokesman Ali Rabiei in a statement.
Here are all of the latest updates as of Friday, January 10:
Saudi defends US attack, condemns Iran
The Saudi Minster of State for Foreign Affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, has condemned Wednesday’s missile attacks by Iran.
“We take issue with the violation of Iraq’s sovereignty by Iran,” Adel al-Jubeir said Friday during a news conference in Prague where he was on a routine diplomatic visit.
Al-Jubeir reiterated the Saudi position, supporting the US right to defend itself but called for calm in the region.
“We believe that there should be a way to avoid escalation because we believe escalation would be damaging to all parties and not just one or the other,” he added.
Al-Jubeir also made reference to the Iranian nuclear deal, saying it is flawed in its current form and that it should be amended.
Iraqi PM tells US to decide mechanism for troop withdrawal
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has told the US secretary of state to send a delegation to Iraq tasked with formulating the mechanism for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, according to a statement.
In a phone call Thursday night the Iraqi leader requested US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to “send delegates to Iraq to prepare a mechanism to carry out the parliament’s resolution regarding the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq,” the statement said.
“The prime minister said American forces had entered Iraq and drones are flying in its airspace without permission from Iraqi authorities and this was a violation of the bilateral agreements,” the statement added.
Iraqi lawmakers passed a non-binding resolution to oust US troops following the US strike last Friday.
European leaders to hold summit to save Iran deal
European Union foreign ministers are set for a rare emergency meeting on Friday afternoon, hoping to guide the United States and Iran away from confrontation.
However, if it is proven that a Ukrainian airliner was this week downed by an Iranian missile, that will likely complicate matters again for the diplomats.
On Monday, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell tweeted his regret at Iran’s recent decision to step away from more aspects of the nuclear deal, which, he said, was “now more important than ever”.
Pilot communicated with Mehrabad airport
Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig reporting from Tehran said that according to the aviation authority, the pilot did contact Mehrabad airport, which deals with domestic flights in Tehran, seeking permission to climb to a higher altitude of 26,000 ft.
“We’re getting that extra information because before we thought the pilot had no communication but now we’re hearing that he did communicate with Mehrabad airport,” Baig said.
The aviation authority also said the plane had caught fire for a minute and a half to two minutes.
“They said that he did try to turn the airplane around and his priority was to save the aircraft and the passengers,” Baig said.
Iranian authorities have said they will try to repair the damaged black box to retrieve the data, but if they don’t succeed, they will seek assistance from Canada, the US and Ukraine, Baig added.
Iran rejects claim missile downed plane
Ali Abedzadeh, head of Iran’s civil aviation department, has rejected claims that Tehran unintentionally hit the airliner with a surface-to-air missile, saying it was impossible due to close coordination between Iran’s air defence and civil aviation department.
“As I said, based on the law, there is full coordination between our air defence and and our civil [aviation] system. Our civil aviation personnel and air defence personnel sit side by side, so it is absolutely impossible for such a thing [shooting down a passenger plane] to happen,” Abedzadeh told a press conference.
He called on the US and Canada to share any information they have on the crash.
“What is obvious for us, and what we can say with certainty, is that no missile hit the plane,” Aedzadeh said.
“If they are really sure, they should come and show their findings to the world,” in accordance with international standards, he added.
Iran TV airs footage of airliner’s black boxes
Iranian state television showed footage purportedly of the two black boxes recovered from the crashed Ukrainian airliner.
The footage, posted online by state TV, showed two devices inside a wooden crate which commentary said were the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder.
Both black boxes are damaged but their memory can be downloaded and examined, the commentary said.
The wooden crate was opened at the Iran Civil Aviation Organisation, the commentary said.
Airliner may have been downed by missile: Ukraine
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the possibility a missile downed the passenger airplane had not been ruled out but it has not been confirmed yet.
He said he would discuss the investigation with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later on Friday.
Iran could have a nuclear weapon within 1-2 years: French minister
Iran could have nuclear weapons in one to two years if the country carries on violating the 2015 nuclear accord, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.
“If they continue with unravelling the Vienna agreement, then yes, within a fairly short period of time, between one and two years, they could have access to a nuclear weapon, which is not an option”, Le Drian said on RTL radio.
EU foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting on Friday to seek ways to guide the US and Iran away from confrontation, knowing that a miscalculation on either side could leave the bloc facing a war and a serious nuclear proliferation crisis on its doorstep.
France ready to contibute to probe: minister
France is available to contribute to the probe on the Ukrainian airliner, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.
“It is important that as much clarity as possible is made and as quickly as possible”, Le Drian said on RTL radio.
The Ukrainian airliner was likely brought down by an Iranian missile, Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said on Thursday, citing intelligence from Canadian and other sources.
Farhad Parvaresh, Iran’s representative at the International Civil Aviation Organisation, part of the United Nations, said on Thursday that France might also be involved as it was one of the countries where the engines were made.
Iran invites Ukraine, Boeing to probe plane crash
Iran has invited both Ukraine and the Boeing company to take part in the plane crash investigation, state media reported. Iran’s spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Tehran will also welcome experts from other countries whose citizens died in the crash.
Iran had initially said it would not allow Boeing to take part in the probe, going against prevailing international norms on crash investigations. It later invited the US accident-investigating agency to take part in the probe.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is proceeding as planned with a trip to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman at the weekend, in advance of dispatching a warship and patrol planes to the Middle East, despite heightened tensions in the area.
Media had reported this week the trip would be cancelled as tensions rose in the region after the US killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and a retaliatory missile attack by Iran on US forces in Iraq.
But Abe will visit the region as intended from January 11-15, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference on Friday.
Japanese Defence Minister Taro Kono was set to issue the deployment order later on Friday for the warship and two P-3C patrol planes for information gathering to protect Japanese ships in the Middle East, from which Japan gets nearly 90 percent of its crude oil.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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