New Delhi:
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday blamed Iran for the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities. He said the U.K. would consider taking part in a U.S.-led military effort to bolster the Gulf kingdom’s defences. “The U.K. is attributing responsibility with a very high degree of probability to Iran” for the attack by drones and cruise missiles. We will be working with our American friends and our European friends to construct a response that tries to de-escalate tensions in the Gulf region,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he would meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at this week’s high-level U.N. gathering. Johnson is also due to hold talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Tehran, however, has denied responsibility for the attacks against the heart of Saudi's all-important oil industry, raising the spectre of "all-out war" in the event of retaliatory measures by Washington or Riyadh.
The attack had knocked out over half of Saudi Arabia's production as it cut 5.7 million barrels per day or over 5 per cent of the world's supply. Abqaiq and Khurais are main processing centres for Saudi Arabia's Arab Extra Light and Arab Light crude oil.
Earlier, US President Donald Trump had said it "looks" like Iran was behind the explosive attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities. However, Trump ruled out any military retaliation for now to the strike against a key US Mideast ally.
A Saudi-led coalition has been battling the rebels since March 2015. The Iranian-backed Houthis hold Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and other territory in the Arab world's poorest country.
The war has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The violence has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine and killed more than 90,000 people since 2015, according to the US-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED, which tracks the conflict.
