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Trump dismisses Iran tanker attack denials

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Published: 02:33, 15 June 2019   Update: 15:18, 26 July 2020
Trump dismisses Iran tanker attack denials

International Desk: US President Donald Trump has dismissed Iran's insistence it had no involvement with the attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

Mr Trump cited footage that Washington says shows Iranian forces in a small boat taking an unexploded mine off the hull of one of the ships.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the truth needed to be "clearly established".

Russia has warned against drawing "hasty conclusions".

The blasts came a month after four oil tankers were damaged in an attack off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. The US blamed Iran for that attack, but did not produce evidence. Iran also denied those accusations.

Tensions between the US and Iran have escalated significantly since US President Donald Trump took office in 2017. He abandoned a nuclear deal that was brokered by the Obama administration and significantly tightened sanctions on Iran.

Speaking to Fox News, he said Iran "did do it".

"I guess one of the mines didn't explode and it's probably got essentially Iran written all over it. And you saw the boat at night trying to take the mine off and successfully took the mine off the boat, and that was exposed," he said.

He also said it was unlikely that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz - a vital shipping lane through which a third of the world's seaborne oil passes every year - but if it did, the strait would not remain closed "for long".

Mr Trump's intervention came after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to carry out the attacks and, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping showed Iran was behind it.

US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan said the US would be sharing intelligence to try to "build international consensus to this international problem".

Agencies


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