TEHRAN, May 18. /TASS/. Iranian authorities do not rule out that the attack on the Namu ship, operated by South Korea’s HMM, may have been carried out by a third country as part of a false-flag operation, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said.

"It also remains unclear to us who in the region is behind this incident. This question has been raised since the very beginning, and we have also stressed that, like any other incident in this region, we will investigate it," he said during a briefing.

According to Baghaei, it is important to consider that "there are forces interested in instability in the region," and the possibility of a false-flag operation cannot be ruled out. "False-flag operations should not be underestimated or treated as merely theoretical or abstract phenomena. Such incidents have occurred many times," he added.

On May 4, an explosion and fire occurred aboard the Panama-flagged vessel Namu, which was anchored off the coast of the UAE in the Strait of Hormuz. There were 24 people on board, and no injuries were reported. The dry cargo ship was later towed to an Emirati port, where an interagency team of seven experts from South Korea conducted an investigation.

US President Donald Trump asserted that the Namu was struck by the Iranian side and called on Seoul to join Project Freedom, a mission to escort commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian Embassy in Seoul stressed that Iran’s armed forces were not involved in the incident.