Iran was behind the deadly attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities on September 14, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters on his plane on the way to the UN General Assembly in New York. The UK also vowed to help Saudi against future aggression.
Johnson said there was “a very high degree of probability” that Iran was responsible for the attack. The attack reduced the country’s oil production by 5.7 million barrels a day, the worst single supply disruption ever.
Both Saudi Arabia and the U.S. last week said weapons used for the attack came from Iran. Iran denied any involvement in the attack. It said any hit on Iran by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia will spark an “all-out-war”.
While in New York, Johnson would meet with French president Emmanual Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel. He’s also meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday to discuss the Saudi attack. The PM will also bring the issue of the continued detention of UK-Iran dual nationals including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
UK to the Rescue
Boris Johnson stressed his intent to be the bridge between “our European friends and the Americans”. He said, “I can tell you that the UK is attributing responsibility with a very high degree of probability to Iran for the Aramco attacks. We think it is very likely indeed that Iran was indeed responsible, using both drones and cruise missiles. Clearly, the difficulty is how do we organise a global response, what is the way forward. We’ll be working with our American friends and our European friends to construct a response that tries to de-escalate tensions in the Gulf region.”
When reporters asked of the UK military forces’ involvement, Johnson said, “We will consider in what way we can be useful, depending on what the exact plan is”.
Related: Saudi Attack Won’t Affect Oil Supply – Indonesian Oil Ministry
