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Iran warns of response if security threatened after ship attack

August 2, 2021 at 7:12 pm

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh in Tehran, Iran on October 5, 2020 [Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency]

Iran will respond promptly to any threat against its security, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday, after the United States, Israel, and Britain blamed Tehran for an attack on an Israeli-managed tanker off the coast of Oman, reports Reuters.

Tehran has denied any involvement in the attack on Thursday in which two crew members – a Briton and a Romanian – were killed.

The United States and Britain said on Sunday they would work with their allies to respond to the attack on Mercer Street, a Liberian-flagged, Japanese-owned petroleum product tanker managed by Israeli-owned Zodiac Maritime.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the incident as “clearly an unacceptable and outrageous attack on commercial shipping”.

“Iran should face up to the consequences of what they’ve done,” Johnson told reporters on Monday.

Britain summoned the Iranian ambassador on Monday. Later, Iran summoned the British Charge d’ Affaires and Romania’s top envoy in Tehran over their countries’ “accusations against the Islamic Republic”, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported.

“Iran has no hesitation in protecting its security and national interests and will respond promptly and strongly to any possible adventure,” Iranian state television quoted foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh as saying.

The US Navy, which was escorting the tanker with the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, said on Saturday that early indications “clearly pointed” to a drone attack.

READ: US, Israel to launch joint international probe into tanker attack

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had accused Tehran of “trying to shirk responsibility” for the attack and called its denial “cowardly”. Israel’s foreign minister said on Sunday the incident deserved a harsh response.

An unidentified Iranian official told Iran’s Nournews news agency earlier that Tehran considered “the threats of Western officials and the Zionist regime (Israel) to be more of a propaganda gesture”.

“And Washington and London will be directly responsible for the consequences,” the official told Nournews, which is close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

Iran and Israel have exchanged accusations of carrying out attacks on each other’s vessels in recent months.

Opposition to Israel is a cornerstone of policy for Iran. Tensions have increased between Iran and Israel since 2018 when then US President Donald Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. Israel has voiced concerns about efforts by Iran and US President Joe Biden’s administration to revive the nuclear pact, under which Iran curbed its sensitive nuclear work in exchange for lifting sanctions.