U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has once again blamed Iran for the recent attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman but has reiterated Washington is not seeking war.
It is "unmistakable" that Iran was responsible for last week’s attacks on oil tankers Pompeo said in an interview on June 16.
"We don't want war," Pompeo told Fox News, but he added that Washington would "take all the actions necessary, diplomatic and otherwise," to guarantee free navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.
In his interview with the Fox News Sunday program, Pompeo said that intelligence officials have "lots of data, lots of evidence" tying Iran to the attacks in the Gulf of Oman.
"These were attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran on commercial shipping, on the freedom of navigation, with the clear intent to deny transit through the strait," he said.
The secretary of state said he did not want to discuss possible next steps the United States might take in response to last week's developments.
Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks and some Iranian officials have suggested that the U.S. and its regional allies might have orchestrated the incident to create a pretext of some actions against the Islamic republic.
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