As the US and Israel continue strikes on Iran, and with retaliatory strikes hitting nearby Middle East states, key shipping routes are being disrupted. Oil and gas production in the region is also being affected. The BBC’s Nick Marsh examines how the war could cause a rise in living costs around the world.
“To be honest, I would not restore it. This is my position. I expressed it to European leaders… because this is Russian oil,” he told a briefing. “Russians are killing Ukrainians and we have to give oil to Orbán, because he, the poor thing, cannot win the election without this oil.”
Several people told the BBC on Thursday morning that they had left the building at the beginning of the week and were staying elsewhere because of safety concerns, noting that the area had been targeted in the past. They said they did not know, or would not comment on, what the target may have been.
But then, he adds: “Probably, along with everyone else, they would also be thinking, oh God, they really have gone into this with no plan at all. Right, we don’t want to get dragged into this like we don’t want to get dragged into anything else, but we also need to do something.”
“When I get to the first village,” he told us, “I will say with a loud voice: ‘I have been fighting for you, you are my people, and now I will fight even more.’” He believes he will be there in time to celebrate the Kurdish new year festival, Nowruz, which falls on 21 March.
“It’s been five years of constant upheaval. It was the judicial reform [plans by the government to limit the powers of the Constitutional court which led to huge protests], then 7 October, then Iran a year ago. Now we have this, and we’ve had Lebanon in the middle,” Tom Dan said after leaving a bomb…
The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world’s most critical chokepoints for oil and gas shipments. Iran does not need to close the narrow Gulf waterway entirely – even credible threats and limited disruptions have already pushed prices up and, if continued, may increase international pressure for de-escalation.
He has spoken to counterparts across the Gulf – in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait – and is promising what he calls “concrete steps” to help them defend their military bases and civilian infrastructure from Iranian attack.
But Abu Dhabi forcefully denies this – and has told the BBC it “categorically rejects allegations that it has provided, financed, transported or facilitated any weapons, ammunition, drones, vehicles, guided munitions or other military equipment to the RSF, whether directly or indirectly”.
“After all that abuse, after all that cruelty, after all that evil, it seems unbelievable that I’m asking people, [that] I’m asking my fellow political prisoners, too, to get that out of here, out of our hearts,” he says. “Every trace of hatred, of resentment, of bitterness, of discontent.”
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