British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has stated that the United Kingdom would consider joining the United States in potential military action against Iran.
While speaking on a campaign trail in Scotland, the Prime Ministerial candidate told the Daily Mail newspaper on Sunday evening that “we will stand by the United States as our strongest ally” but that Britain would consider “any requests for military support on a case-by-case basis.”
Hunt stated that “we’re constantly in touch with the United States” and acknowledged that the recent act of sabotaging tankers in the Gulf “is almost certainly Iran” which makes the UK “very concerned.”
He also stressed that “the solution is for Iran to stop its destabilising activity throughout the Middle East,” and that Britain’s goal is “to de-escalate the situation but we are of course extremely worried.”
The comments by Hunt come as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visits Saudi Arabia today in his mission to build a “global coalition” against Iran, with the Kingdom and its neighbouring ally the UAE at the forefront.
Speaking yesterday prior to his departure, Pompeo announced that “we’ll be talking with them about how to make sure that we are all strategically aligned and how we can build out a global coalition.”
These efforts, Pompeo outlined, are for the purpose of preventing Iran from attaining “the resources to foment terror, to build out their nuclear weapon system, to build out their missile programme.”
Tensions between the US and Iran have increased dramatically in recent weeks after a number of oil tankers were attacked and sabotaged in multiple incidences in the Arab-Persian Gulf, which the US and its allies in the region have accused Iran of conducting.
Iran, however, has repeatedly denied the claims. Relations reached boiling point after the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down a US surveillance drone which reportedly entered the country’s southern airspace on Thursday.
