“We won’t hesitate to deal with any threat”

SAUDI ARABIA Mohammed bin Salman has spoken publicly for the first time since a second attack on Saudi oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, blaming arch-rival Iran and vowing that Saudi Arabia “won’t hesitate to deal with any threat” to the kingdom’s interests. According to an interview for pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, published on Sunday, the crown prince said: “We do not want a war in the region ... But we won’t hesitate to deal with any threat to our people, our sovereignty, our territorial integrity and our vital interests. “The Iranian regime did not respect the presence of the Japanese prime minister as a guest in Tehran and responded to his [diplomatic] efforts by attacking two tankers, one of which was Japanese.” Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, called for a “swift and decisive” response to threats against energy supplies after Thursday’s “terrorist acts”. The attack on two tankers – the Japaneseowned Kokuka Courageous, which was carrying highly flammable methanol when it was rocked by explosions, and the Norwegian-operated Front Altair – came around the time the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was meeting Iranian leaders in Tehran. It was the second attack in a month in the strategic shipping lane. Divisions over responsibility for last week’s attack have deepened amid fears of a major regional confrontation over the strategic shipping channel, despite hints by Donald Trump about possible negotiations with Iran. Speaking on Sunday, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said that while it was “unmistakable” that Iran was responsible for the attacks on two tankers, the US did not want to go to war with Tehran. The Iranian government has singled out the UK as the only major European country to back the US intelligence assessment. The UK set out its own independent intelligence in a statement on Friday evening, but stressed it still believed a diplomatic route was the best way to deescalate the crisis. On Saturday, the UAE’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, called on world powers “to secure international navigation and access to energy”, a plea echoed by regional ally Saudi Arabia after the incident sent crude prices soaring. Iran has repeatedly warned it could block the strategic strait of Hormuz in a relatively low-tech, highimpact countermeasure to any attack by the US. Doing so would disrupt oil tankers travelling out of the Gulf region to the Indian Ocean and global export routes.

The two damaged tankers arrived safely on Sunday at locations off the Emirati coast.

(AFP)