UAE Says Better Evidence Needed to Assign Blame for Tanker Attacks

The United Arab Emirates said on Wednesday that clear and convincing evidence was still needed to assign blame for the attacks on four oil tankers – two of them Saudi – off its coast in May. Abu Dhabi submitted the results of a probe into the attack, which deemed a state entity as the orchestrator though without naming the country. To name a country, the evidence must be “clear and precise and scientific and convincing for the international community,” UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan told a news conference in Moscow with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. The United States and its ally Saudi Arabia have publicly blamed Iran for the attack and for a subsequent strike against two vessels in the Gulf of Oman. The Islamic Republic has denied involvement in either attack. The statement came a day after Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, told journalists in Jerusalem that evidence from Washington blaming Tehran was “poor quality and unprofessional.”