{"id":16724,"date":"2018-09-29T04:24:43","date_gmt":"2018-09-29T04:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=16724"},"modified":"2018-09-29T04:24:43","modified_gmt":"2018-09-29T04:24:43","slug":"us-shuts-consulate-in-iraqs-basra-blames-indirect-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=16724","title":{"rendered":"US shuts consulate in Iraq\u2019s Basra, blames \u2018indirect fire\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1379466\/middle-east\" readability=\"54\">\n<p class=\"rtejustify\">\nNEW YORK: The administration of US President Donald Trump is pressing ahead with plans to create an \u201cArab NATO\u201d that would unite US partners in the Middle East in an anti-Iran alliance.<br \/>Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has met in New York with foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE to advance the project.<br \/>The State Department says the ministers agreed on the need to confront threats from Iran and had productive discussions on Friday on setting up what is to be known as the \u201cMiddle East Strategic Alliance\u201d to promote security and stability in the region.<br \/>The meeting took place as Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif dismissed Israeli claims that Tehran was harboring a secret atomic warehouse.<br \/>\u201cNo arts and craft show will ever obfuscate that Israel is only regime in our region with a \u201csecret\u201d and \u201cundeclared\u201d nuclear weapons program,\u201d Zarif said in a tweet.<br \/>He called on Israel saying it was \u201ctime to fess up and open its illegal nuclear weapons\u201d program to international inspectors.<br \/>\u201cHow can Israel, as the only holder of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, so shamelessly accuse a country whose programs have repeatedly been declared as peaceful by the IAEA,\u201d the UN nuclear watchdog, Iran\u2019s official IRNA news agency quoted Zarif as saying.<br \/>He said Israel and the US stood \u201calone\u201d on the world stage, as \u201cpolicies forced by Netanyahu on America\u201d had driven them both to isolation.<br \/>Zarif was responding to allegations made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday in a speech to the UN General Assembly, embellished by ample use of the colorful props that have become his trademark.<br \/>Netanyahu held up a map and a photograph of an outwardly \u201cinnocent looking compound\u201d which he said was a secret atomic warehouse in Tehran and urged the IAEA to inspect.<br \/>\u201cToday, I\u2019m disclosing for the first time that Iran has another secret facility in Tehran, a secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and materiel from Iran\u2019s secret nuclear weapons program,\u201d he said.<br \/>Israel is main supporter of Trump\u2019s abandonment of a landmark 2015 nuclear accord between the major powers and Iran.<br \/>The move, announced in May and accompanied by the subsequent reimposition of crippling US sanctions, has put Washington at odds with other major powers, including longstanding allies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK: The administration of US President Donald Trump is pressing ahead with plans to create an \u201cArab NATO\u201d that would unite US partners in the Middle East in an anti-Iran alliance.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has met in New York with foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":16725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}