UK says trying to ‘deescalate’ volatile US-Iran standoff

Britain’s foreign minister says it is trying to “deescalate” a volatile situation after a US drone strike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says in an interview with broadcaster Sky News that Soleimani “was a regional menace.”

Raab adds that the UK understood the US’s “position” and “right to exercise self-defense.”

But Raab says the UK was discussing with top officials in the US and Europe, as well as Iran and Iraq, about how to avoid a war, which he says wouldn’t be in anyone’s interests.

Britain’s Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said late Saturday that he had ordered two British Navy warships, the HMS Montrose frigate and the HMS Defender destroyer, to return to the Strait of Hormuz amid the soaring regional tensions.

— AP