Iran Accuses Israel of ‘Whitewashing Own Terrorism’ Against Commercial Ships Via Tanker Attack Claim

Tensions in the Gulf region have been ratcheted up dramatically in recent weeks following the deadly 29 July attack on the Mercer Street, an Israeli-managed oil tanker. Tel Aviv and its allies accused Iran of responsibility for the attack. Tehran denied the claims and warned the international community to be wary of Israeli “false flag operations.”

Israel can’t “whitewash” its record of naval terrorism against Iran by throwing false accusations Tehran’s way over the Mercer Street incident, Zahra Ershadi, Iran’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, has suggested.

“All such allegations [related to Mercer Street] are the repetition of fabrications pumped to media by the Israeli regime immediately after that incident. There is no irrefutable, verifiable and conclusive evidence to substantiate these grave accusations. What they are trying to portray as definite hard evidence are nothing but certain photos which prove nothing,” the diplomat said in a statement to the UN Security Council on Monday, in a likely reference to images released by US Central Command on Friday showing suspected damage to the tanker and the remains of supposed Iranian drones.

U.S. Central Command Statement on the Investigation into the Attack on the Motor Tanker Mercer Street, August 6th, 2021 @US5thFleethttps://t.co/Hy0TkNLKZ2 pic.twitter.com/jkx1YKP7Hp

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) August 6, 2021

The ten ships referred to by the diplomat are Iranian commercial vessels sent to energy-starved Syria over the past two years which were struck or otherwise sabotaged by the Israeli military while on route to their destination. US and Israeli media first reported on the sabotage attacks in March, with Iran indirectly confirming the veracity of the articles last week. Iran sent the emergency fuel supplies to Syria after Damascus was stripped of its erstwhile food and energy self-sufficiency by the US, which occupies large swathes of food and energy-rich eastern Syria together with local Kurdish forces.

In her remarks on Monday, Ershadi alleged that “in addition to its policy of deception and fabrication, it is an open secret that Israel is the master in conducting false flag operations.”

“Rather than playing victim and demonisng others, the Israeli regime must immediately stop all its irresponsible policies, aggressions and crimes,” the diplomat urged.

Ershadi reiterated that Iran’s long coastlines along the strategically critical waterways of the Persian Gulf, the Hormuz Strait and the Sea of Oman, combined with the Islamic Republic’s own strong demand for maritime shipping as a major global oil and gas producing country, means that Iran “is highly interested in, and attaches great importance to, maritime security.” Iran, she suggested, has also expressed its readiness for enhanced regional and international cooperation in this field, and has demonstrated its commitments to the international fight against piracy via its decade plus-long deployment in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere.

Ershadi suggested that the presence of naval forces of the countries now accusing Iran of involvement in the Mercer Street attack, which are not native to the Persian Gulf region,  are the main source of regional insecurity and instability, with “fabrications and false flag operations, including by Israel,” used “to justify [their] unwarranted presence or to invade regional countries.” The diplomat urged the Security to “live up to” its responsibilities and to “hold [the Israeli] regime accountable for all its unlawful practices.”

Mercer Street Tensions

Israel has accused Iran of responsibility for the deadly attack on the Mercer Street tanker in the Gulf of Oman, alleging that the attack, which killed the empty oil tanker’s Romanian national captain and a British national bodyguard who was also onboard, was struck by Iranian suicide drones. Iran rejected the allegations and warned that Gulf security was its “redline” that adversaries including are advised not to cross.

The UN warned nations to avoid escalatory actions amid Israeli threats to strike Iran over the incident.

The Mercer Street incident comes amid fading hopes in the revival of the Iran nuclear deal amid the freezing of talks in Vienna on a possible US return to the landmark 2015 agreement. Earlier on Tuesday, it was reported that the Biden administration is mulling ‘interim alternatives’ to the nuclear deal amid the stalled talks. Israel, which has spent years lobbying the US to get out of the nuclear deal, and months pushing it to stay out, recently warned that Iran may be just ‘months away’ from building a nuclear bomb. Tehran has long dismissed all claims that it seeks to pursue nuclear weapons, and accused the international community of being too lenient on Israel’s own suspected nuclear programme.