Iran calls Trump's drone attack claims on Indian ships 'simply baseless'

New Delhi: US President Donald Trump's claim that Iran carried out a drone attack on Indian ships in the Strait of Hormuz is "simply baseless", the Iranian embassy has said.

The mission also described Trump's comments as an attempt to divert attention from the American military's strikes on merchant vessels in the Gulf of Oman this week that killed three Indian mariners.

"The US president's accusation against Iran regarding an Indian vessel in the Strait of Hormuz is simply baseless," it said on social media.


"It is an attempt to divert public attention from the brutal fact that the US has attacked three Indian vessels in less than a week and killed three innocent Indian sailors. That's pathetic," the embassy added.

The US president's claim on Friday came hours after India summoned US charge d'affaires Jason Meeks and told him that American military's "lethal and deadly" strikes on commercial vessels with Indian crew members off the coast of Oman were "unacceptable".

It was the second time this week New Delhi summoned Meeks over the US attacks on three vessels that killed three Indians.

A Palau-flagged oil tanker, Marivex, carrying 24 Indian seafarers, was disabled by US forces on June 8. All crew members were safely rescued. On June 10, the US struck another Palau-flagged tanker, Settebello, killing three out of the 24 Indian sailors on board.

Another vessel, Jalveer, a Guinea-Bissau-flagged tanker with 20 Indians, was attacked on Thursday.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal on Thursday said the three separate strikes on the Settebello, Marivex and Jalveer "came from the US Navy".

Jaiswal said two of the three vessels were subject to sanctions administered by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), while another had been classified as non-compliant.

The OFAC is the financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the US Treasury Department, and it acts against vessels involved in violating US sanctions on the sale of Iranian and Russian oil.

The US Central Command said it initiated action to disable three vessels -- Marivex on June 8, Settebello on June 9 and MT Jalveer on June 11 -- saying they were trying to violate the US blockade of Iranian ports.