US shot down Iranian drone: Trump

International Desk: The American military downed an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday in what President Trump called an act of self-defense, just hours after Iran’s chief diplomat offered a modest road map for easing tensions with the United States.

Officials said the uncrewed, relatively small drone came within 1,000 yards of the Boxer, a United States amphibious assault ship in the strait. It was not known if the drone was armed, but a Pentagon spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, said that it had “closed within a threatening range” before being shot down over international waters.

Mr. Trump described it as “the latest of many provocative and hostile actions by Iran.”

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, appeared to brush off the president’s broadside. “The drone issue is being investigated, but based on the latest news I have from Tehran, we have no information about losing a drone,” he told reporters at the United Nations.

At the United Nations headquarters, he said he was willing to discuss possible ways out of the crisis that erupted after Mr. Trump last year withdrew the United States from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

The day’s events captured the precarious crossroads where the adversaries of 40 years now find themselves. Earlier, the State Department accused Iran of “continued harassment of vessels” in the strait after Iranian news media reported the seizure of a vessel conducting what it said was a smuggling operation.

The Trump administration and parts of the Iranian government have each appeared to be desperately seeking an off-ramp, aware that any move from shadowboxing to open conflict could be disastrous.

But both have dug themselves in.

In New York, Mr. Zarif initially appeared determined to calm tensions with the United States. For the first time, he floated an opening bid of modest steps that Tehran would be willing to take as part of new talks between the two adversaries.

The proposal would accelerate what the nuclear accord envisions as a “transition day,” now scheduled for 2023. That is when Iran formally ratifies an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency to allow far more intrusive inspections of the country, including sites that Tehran has never declared as nuclear-related.

In return, under the agreement, Congress would have to act to lift virtually all American sanctions on Iran.

The offer is all but certain to be rejected by the Trump administration, which describes Iran as increasingly desperate as sanctions take full effect. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has often said that sanctions will only be lifted in return for an agreement that permanently ends Iran’s production of nuclear fuel, limits its missile program to purely defensive weapons and ends its support for terrorist groups.

Yet on Thursday, Mr. Zarif insisted that Iran would never back away from its missile program while the United States arms its Arab adversaries with similar weapons. But he described each of Tehran’s recent steps to escalate its uranium enrichment as carefully calibrated — and said they “could be reversed” if the United States backed away from sanctions that were imposed once Mr. Trump left the nuclear deal.

Still, the Iranian diplomat struck a philosophical tone if nothing came of efforts to restart negotiations.

Agencies

risingbd/Dhaka/July 19, 2019/Nasim