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Iran Parliament Speaker hints US could have planned oil tanker attacks

June 17, 2019 at 12:09 pm

Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani in Tehran, Iran on 13 November 2016 [Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency]

The United States could have planned the attack on the two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, IRNA news agency reported Iran’s Parliament Speaker, Ali Larijani, insinuating.

“The suspicious actions against the tankers… seem to complement the economic sanctions against Iran considering that [the US] has not achieved any results from them,” Larijani said.

He added that it was “funny” that the United States has urged Iran to use diplomacy while the Americans targeted their own ships near Japan during World War II “to create an excuse for hostility”.

On Thursday, two oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz while setting off from oil-rich Arab Gulf countries en route to the far east.

The Strait of Hormuz is a vital waterway, with roughly one-third of the world’s liquefied natural gas and a fifth of its oil consumption transiting through it each day.

The US officially blamed Iran for Thursday’s attacks on the two Japan-operated oil tankers, an accusation vehemently denied by Tehran.

Thursday’s attacks came a few weeks after four vessels, including two Saudi oil tankers, were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

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