The US wants a peaceful solution to the crisis sparked by attacks on Saudi oil facilities, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said, after Iran raised the prospect of all-out war. Pompeo has blamed Iran for the dramatic weekend assault on two facilities, condemning as an act of war which knocked out half the kingdom’s oil production.
After meeting with allies in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, Pompeo said there was an enormous consensus in the region that Iran carried out the attacks, despite its denials and Yemeni rebels’ claims that they were responsible. But Pompeo said the US is intent on finding a way out of the confrontation.
Tehran-linked Huthi rebels in Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbour Yemen have claimed responsibility, but both Washington and Riyadh have said the operation was beyond the Yemeni insurgents’ capabilities. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also said the Huthi claim lacks credibility.
The rhetoric has raised the risk of an unpredictable escalation in a tinderbox region where Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in a decades-old struggle for dominance.