The United Arab Emirates said Friday that twin attacks on tankers in the Sea of Oman marked a “dangerous escalation”.
“The attack against the tankers in the Gulf of Oman is a worrying development and a dangerous escalation,” the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, tweeted after Thursday’s blasts.
Gargash also condemned a Yemeni missile attack at an airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
He said the “blatant attack” was only the latest in a spate of Yemeni assaults “undermining the UN’s political work & sending a message of continuing violence & hostility”.
These developments “must spur the international community to act to maintain peace and security in the region”, Gargash said.
“The responsibility for avoiding an escalation is collective.”
The two tankers, one Norwegian- and one Japanese-owned, were set blaze in the Gulf of Oman off the coast of Iran on Thursday.
Later on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lashed out at the US administration, saying it had “immediately jumped to make allegations against Iran without a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence,” referring to remarks by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who blamed the Islamic Republic for the incident.
Zarif accused Washington of seeking to “sabotage diplomacy” as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Tehran in a bid to ease Iran-US tensions.
Source: AFP
