Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry has rowed back on claims made by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn that there was no 'credible evidence' that Iran was responsible for attacks on two oil tankers.
Mr Corbyn made the claim after the the Foreign Office said it was 'almost certain' in its assessment that 'a branch of the Iranian military... attacked the two tankers on 13 June'.
But Ms Thornberry - who was recently axed from the role of standing in for Mr Corbyn at PMQs - appeared to row back on his assessment by saying Britain had 'processes' for assessing whether or not Iran was behind the attacks.
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Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry has rowed back on claims made by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn that there was no 'credible evidence' that Iran was responsible for attacks on two oil tankers
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 [the attack].
'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 appeared to suggest that Iran could have carried out the tanker attack after taking the 'bait' of Western sanctions against Iran's sale of oil.
She said: '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,' she added.
The explosions on Thursday left one of the oil tankers, the Norwegian MT Front Altair, burning outside in the Gulf of Oman.
The Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous was also attacked.
Ms Thornberry's comments came after Mr Corbyn tweeted this morning: 'Britain should act to ease tensions in the Gulf, not fuel a military escalation that began with US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement.
Mr Corbyn questioned whether Iran was responsible for the tanker attacks
He said on Twitter that 'without credible evidence' about who carried out the attacks, the government's 'rhetoric' would 'increase the threat of war'
'Without credible evidence about the tanker attacks, the government's rhetoric will only increase the threat of war.'
Ms Thornberry also warned against getting 'enmeshed' in another war following the Iraq conflict, echoing Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt's warning yesterday of 'unintended but catastrophic consequences' if Iran was
