(Photo: @NavalJournal/Twitter)
The decision by the ANC government to allow warships from Iran to dock at Cape Town harbor has significantly increased the risk of Western sanctions against South Africa.
Darren Bergman, the DA’s shadow minister for international relations and cooperation, thinks so.
“A diplomatic note sent by the US Embassy to the Parliamentary Committee on International Relations warns South African authorities that ‘entities and individuals providing support, including maritime services to relevant entities, may be subject to sanctions by US authorities’, ” says Bergman.
“By choosing to place a heavy economic cost on South Africans for its reckless support of international traitor governments such as Iran, the ANC government is actively showing that it is no longer acting in the best interests of the country.”
Bergman says this cannot be allowed and the DA calls on the committee to request that Minister Naledi Pandor explain how they could allow Iranian warships to dock at a South African port despite warnings about possible economic consequences by the international community.
“It makes one angry that we have a government that has now abandoned all pretense of rationality and is actively bringing South Africa’s image overseas into controversy – firstly by refusing to condemn Russia’s aggressive war in Ukraine and now by allowing that Iranian warships dock in Cape Town.”
Bergman adds that the Iranian government is not only a serial violator of human rights against its own citizens, but has been a major destabilizing force in the Middle East for years and has actively supported Russia’s war in Ukraine by supplying military hardware.
“The South African economy is on life support and economic sanctions, in any form, will lead to inevitable collapse. This is the price the ANC wants South Africans to pay, because it wants to maintain its relations with traitor countries – whose contribution to our economy is negligible. It is astonishing to see how far the ANC has strayed from a supposed human rights-based foreign policy to one where the protection of [Wladimir] Putin and the Iranian authoritarian regime preferred. Pandor’s defense of the world’s authoritarian governments can no longer be allowed. She must now be held accountable for her disastrous foreign policy attitude.”
Iranian Navy’s Group 86, consisting of ships Dena and Makran, reaches Cape Town, South Africa after crossing the Indian and South Pacific Ocean, making a stop in Brazil and crossing the South Atlantic Ocean #navy #Iran #SouthAfrica pic.twitter.com/CfTpXzj3n4
— Naval Journal (@NavalJournal) April 2, 2023
“ 86th Fleet of the Iranian Navy docked in South Africa: Dana and Makran ships, docked at the port of Cape Town, South Africa, this morning, Friday, April 11, 1402, with the reception of Iran’s regime ambassador and representative of the navy and local port authorities:” pic.twitter.com/zzUk0Phrbf
— Nagi N. Najjar (@NagiNajjar) March 31, 2023
Dena & Makron warships dock at the port of Cape Town in South African…
These two vessels recently visited Brazil which made Senator Ted Cruz propose sanctioning Brazil!
It seems BRICS countries are showing that their economic ties translates to their security ties.
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— ????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????? (@Safarnejad_IR) March 31, 2023
