Footage US military claims shows Iranian patrol boat removing limpet mine from tanker – video Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn: no ‘credible evidence’ of Iran role in tanker attacks Labour leader urges UK to ease tensions in Gulf after Foreign Office links blasts to Tehran Guardian staff and agencies Sat 15 Jun 2019 17.06 EDT Share on Facebook

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Jeremy Corbyn has called for the government to abstain from escalating tensions with Iran without “credible evidence” that Tehran was responsible for attacks on two oil tankers.

The Labour leader said Britain risked increasing the threat of war after the Foreign Office (FCO) said it was “almost certain” in its assessment that “a branch of the Iranian military … attacked the two tankers on 13 June”.

Corbyn tweeted: “Britain should act to ease tensions in the Gulf, not fuel a military escalation that began with US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement.

“Without credible evidence about the tanker attacks, the government’s rhetoric will only increase the threat of war.”

The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, described Corbyn’s comments as “pathetic and predictable”.

The FCO had said: “No other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible,” and pointed to a “recent precedent for attacks by Iran against oil tankers”.

Hunt, who had said the attacks built on “a pattern of destabilising Iranian behaviour and pose a serious danger to the region”, criticised Corbyn for his comments.

“Pathetic and predictable,” Hunt tweeted. “From Salisbury to the Middle East, why can he never bring himself to back British allies, British intelligence or British interests?”

Later on Saturday, the UK Foreign Office also said a report from the semi-official ISNA news agency that the British ambassador to Tehran had been summoned to a meeting with an Iranian foreign ministry official was incorrect.

On Friday, the US released footage said to show an unexploded mine being removed from one of the tankers by Iranian special forces.

But the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, accused the US of “carrying out an aggressive policy and posing a serious threat to regional stability”.

The foreign minister, Javad Zarif, had said earlier that the US “immediately jumped to make allegations against Iran without a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence”.

Corbyn was criticised last year for warning against rushing to “hasty judgments” after the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned with a nerve agent in the UK.

The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, warned on Saturday against the UK becoming “enmeshed in a war”.

She said “independent evidence” should be established over who was responsible for the attacks, but cautioned that the severity of the situation and “the scale of what it is we may be about to get dragged into” should be the main focus for politicians.

“These are extremely dangerous developments and we really have to pause and think about where we are going next,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Refusing to either back or reject Corbyn’s comments, Thornberry insisted the main issue was avoiding “British forces being drawn into a conflict of that size”.

“We’ve got to give up on this idea that if the United States go into war, especially one engineered by the likes of John Bolton and the neocons, we have to stop and say there are times when we don’t just follow,” Thornberry said.

“We made a dreadful mistake when it came to Iraq and we must not make the same mistake again.”

Hunt said Britain’s assessment “leads us to conclude that responsibility for the attacks almost certainly lies with Iran”.

“We call on Iran urgently to cease all forms of destabilising activity. The UK remains in close coordination with international partners to find diplomatic solutions to de-escalate tensions.”

“I guess one of the mines didn’t explode and it’s probably got essentially Iran written all over it,” the US president said. “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.”

The price of oil rose sharply on Thursday amid fears of disruption to one of the world’s most important tanker routes.

The suspected attacks came after four commercial ships were “subjected to sabotage operations” in the Gulf in May.

The FCO said a UAE-led investigation had concluded that they were conducted by “a sophisticated state actor”.