Washington. July 31. INTERFAX-US State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter could not confirm media reports that Iran is responsible for the attack on a Japanese-owned tanker in the northern Indian Ocean.
"We are closely monitoring the situation and are working with our international partners to establish all the facts. At the moment, I have nothing more to offer you, " she said at a briefing.
This statement was made in response to a journalist's request to comment on a report broadcast in Arabic by the Iranian TV channel Al Alam TV, which, citing unnamed sources, claimed that the attack on the ship was carried out in response to an alleged Israeli attack on the Al-Dabaa military airport in Syria.
The source said that as a result of an Israeli air strike on the night of July 22, carried out in the Al-Qusayr district in the western Syrian province of Homs, two "resistance fighters" were killed, and Hezbollah's weapons and ammunition depots were destroyed.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, in turn, told British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab about the need for a tough reaction to the incident, which resulted in the death of a crew member - a British citizen.
He also stressed: "Iran is not only an Israeli problem, but also an exporter of terrorism, destruction and instability that harm all of us. The world should not remain silent in the face of Iranian terrorism, which also harms the freedom of navigation."
Earlier it was reported that the Japanese tanker Mercer Street, traveling without cargo from Dar es Salaam to Fujairah, was attacked in the north of the Indian Ocean. As a result, two crew members were killed - a British citizen and a Romanian citizen.
