{"id":27465,"date":"2026-01-16T16:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T16:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/27465\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T16:25:08","slug":"south-africa-in-hot-water-over-iranian-warships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/27465\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa in Hot Water Over Iranian Warships"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>South Africa has initiated an investigation following the involvement of Iranian warships in naval exercises off its coast. Reports have surfaced suggesting that the Defence Ministry disregarded President Cyril Ramaphosa&#8217;s orders that the Iranian ships should only serve as observers.<\/p>\n<p>The US, voicing concern, condemned South Africa&#8217;s decision to host Iranian forces amid ongoing protests in Iran. Criticism is focused on the timing, as Iranian authorities are accused of violently suppressing peaceful protests.<\/p>\n<p>The Defence Ministry stated that Defence Minister Angie Motshekga communicated Ramaphosa&#8217;s instructions to relevant parties, yet concerns remain. The naval exercises were part of a BRICS event involving China, Russia, and the UAE, although the exact orders from the president remain unclear.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>(With inputs from agencies.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; South Africa has initiated an investigation following the involvement of Iranian warships in naval exercises off its&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[593,235,16812,12844,16810,10430,6020,584,131,16811],"class_list":{"0":"post-27465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-brics","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-defence-ministry","11":"tag-iran-protests","12":"tag-iranian-warships","13":"tag-naval-drills","14":"tag-ramaphosa","15":"tag-russia","16":"tag-south-africa","17":"tag-us-tensions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}