Ms Thornberry today argued Britain had “processes” for assessing whether Iran was responsible for the attack in the Gulf of Oman after Mr Cobyn claimed blaming Tehran “will only increase the threat of war”. She told the BBC’s Today programme: “We have to start off as the UN as Germany as Jeremy Hunt said on your programme yesterday, we need to establish proper evidence on what happens in this case. As the UN and Germany have said, we need to make sure we have independent evidence on that.
“I listened very carefully to what Jeremy Hunt said yesterday and he said that we will make our own independent assessment for that, we have processes for doing that and that absolutely has to be right.”
She then appeared to suggest Iran may have been behind the attack and taken “bait” for the US putting sanctions on the Middle East.
She added: “There may be an argument that the Iranians might take the view that if the West is going to block their sales of oil, then they will disrupt our oil sales.
“I understand that, I understand the arguments and as I’ve said three or four times now, so long as there is independent evidence of that, then we need to move on.”
The two tankers were attacked on Thursday – with one having travelled from Norway and another from Japan.
Ms Thornberry’s comments come after Mr Corbyn this morning 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 post sparked outrage on social media.
One commenter replied: “You want more ‘credible evidence’ about Russia meddling in UK. You want more ‘credible evidence’ about Assad’s Syrian atrocities.
“Now you want more ‘credible evidence’ about Iran’s belligerent & terror activities. At every chance, you continue to make excuses for UK’s enemies!”
Another said: “God help us if you are ever in charge of the security of our nation.”
A third commenter said: “Your student union view of the world is embarrassing.”
Another said: “It was those fairies at the bottom of the garden again!! To think that we could have you in charge of our armed forces is frightening.”
Tehran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, called the incident “suspicious”.
Nobody was injured in the attack.
