Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven wealthy economies are accusing Iran of threatening international peace and security and that all available evidence showed it was behind an attack on the Mercer Street tanker last week.
A statement, issued by current G7chair, Britain said all available evidence clearly points to Iran adding that there is no justification for this attack. But Tehran has denied any involvement in the suspected drone attack in which two crew members, a Briton and a Romanian, were killed.
Britain raised the issue at a closed-door meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Friday. No action is expected to be taken by the 15-member body.
The vessel was a Liberian-flagged, Japanese-owned petroleum product tanker managed by Israeli-owned Zodiac Maritime.
In a separate statement, the US military said explosives experts from the Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier – which deployed to assist the Mercer Street – concluded the drone was produced in Iran.
It said the explosives experts were able to recover several pieces of a drone, including a part of the wing and internal components which it said were nearly identical to previously collected samples of Iranian attack drones.
The US military also suggested the attack may have been launched from the Iranian coast, saying the distance to the locations of the attacks “was within the range of documented Iranian one-way attack” drones.
Central Command, which oversees US forces in the region, said in the statement that some of the material was transferred to US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, Bahrain and subsequently to a US national laboratory for further testing and verification,”.
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