21JUN

Baqaei calls the UAE missile claim baseless

2 min read

17:51UTC

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman called the Emirati missile allegation baseless on 19 August, telling Mehr News Agency that unfounded claims damage confidence between neighbours.

← Back to Hormuz shuts as Vance flies to Geneva Jump to analysis ↓

ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

Iran denies the missile allegation but has announced no answer to the Emirati measure itself.

Esmaeil Baqaei, spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, rejected the Emirati missile allegation as baseless on 19 August. Unfounded claims against Iran damage efforts to prevent regional insecurity and build confidence between neighbours, he told Mehr News Agency⁠¹.

The allegation he is answering dates to 8 August, when the United Arab Emirates said an Iranian missile had targeted an ADNOC vessel in the strait. That claim, and the piracy accusation that followed it, form the stated grounds for the trade and financial halt Abu Dhabi announced on 18 August.

Baqaei disputed the grounds and left the measure alone. He announced no countermeasure, summoned nobody in Abu Dhabi, and named no Emirati official. His phrasing sat in the register of neighbourly confidence-building, which is not the register a government reaches for when it intends to answer in kind.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baqaei, said on 19 August that accusations linking Iran to a missile attack on a UAE-linked vessel are false. He argued that making such claims makes the region less safe, because they damage trust between neighbouring countries. This is Iran's direct answer to the UAE's decision, a day earlier, to name Iran's Revolutionary Guard as the attacker and cut off trade. The two governments now disagree publicly about who did what, with no independent verification available to settle it.

What could happen next?

Meaning
Baqaei's denial keeps Iran's public position that it bears no responsibility for the tanker attacks the UAE has cited as grounds for a full trade halt.

Source Landscape

This story draws on mixed-leaning sources from Iran

Iran

LeftRight

Primary parallel: Baqaei has denied Iranian responsibility for Hormuz-area disputes before; his 13 August comments on strait administration similarly rejected the premise that Iran bears the cost of the conflict's disruption, arguing instead that others owe Iran for environmental damage.

Counter-parallel: Iran's own account of the 11 August Vela Nova strike differs from this case: there, the US openly claimed the strike, leaving Iran nothing to deny. Denial is only available to Tehran when the underlying attack is attributed to it in the first place, which is why this rejection follows the UAE's naming of the IRGC rather than a US claim.

Consensus view: Iran's foreign ministry, through spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei, characterises the UAE's missile allegation as unfounded and argues that repeating it undermines confidence-building between neighbours, the same framing Baqaei used on 13 August when he tied any Hormuz administration deal to compensation for environmental damage he blames on the conflict rather than on Iran.

Counter-view: The UAE's own 13 August statement did not rest on this single incident; it formally named the IRGC as the perpetrator of an ADNOC tanker attack and invoked UN Security Council Resolution 2817, a legal step Abu Dhabi does not appear to have reversed since.

Key tension: Whether a categorical denial from Tehran's spokesman carries weight against a formal, resolution-citing attribution from a state that has just cut all trade with Iran on the strength of it.

Sources:Mehr News Agency·Mehr News Agency

Mentions:Esmaeil Baqaei →Iran →Mehr News Agency →Tehran →Emirates →Abu Dhabi →ADNOC →M/V Vela Nova →United Arab Emirates (UAE) →Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) →UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs →

First Reported In

Update #172 · The strait nobody can count, insure or pay

Mehr News Agency· 19 Aug 2026

Read original →

Causes and effects

Caused by

Abu Dhabi cuts Iran's payment channel

Baqaei's rejection answers the missile allegation underlying the UAE's trade halt.

Occurred 17 Aug 2026

Read story →

This Event

Baqaei calls the UAE missile claim baseless

Tehran contests the reason Abu Dhabi gave, not the measure Abu Dhabi took.

Different Perspectives

Office for Budget Responsibility

The OBR's 28 October forecast assumed $82 oil for 2026 and 2027, from market prices for the ten working days to 19 August, and blamed dearer wholesale energy on the war without naming Iran. It expects CPI inflation close to 4% in early 2027 even at that price.

Hengaw, Kurdish rights group

Hengaw reported the 3 November hangings of Amirhossein Maleki and Amirhossein Ebrahimi in Isfahan, saying Ebrahimi was tortured into confessing and that nine of 12 people sentenced to death in the case have now been hanged. Iran's judiciary holds that the defendants killed members of the security forces.

FINTRAC, Canada's financial intelligence unit

FINTRAC worked with the US Treasury on the 6 November designation of eight money services businesses in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. Treasury says the businesses still operate, some under new names, so closing them falls to Ottawa.

Abdul Qadir al-Dakhil, Governor of Nineveh

Al-Dakhil cancelled three Mosul International Airport contracts on 7 November over alleged links to armed groups, after meeting Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi in Baghdad. He named no group or company, and said the contracts will go to international companies.

Kuwait

Kuwait condemned the Houthi missile fired towards the Madinah region on 5 November and restated its support for Saudi Arabia, the Qatar News Agency reported. Its state tanker company, Kuwait Oil Tankers Company, is among the Gulf state fleets on Iran's expanded Hormuz list.

Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary

Treasury designated an alleged Chandigarh false-flag network on 4 November and eight Canadian exchangers on 6 November, while State sanctioned alleged MANPADS intermediaries. None of the actions touches an oil buyer; they target the paper, cash and procurement around Iran's trade.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.