Jaishankar speaks to Rubio, lodges strong protest over US Navy attacks that killed 3 Indians

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar lodged a strong protest with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the attacks by the US Navy in the Gulf that killed three Indian seafarers.

Three vessels with Indian crews were targeted this week off the coast of Oman, with one of them resulting in the deaths.

Minister Jaishankar took to X to share details of his conversation with Secretary Rubio. "Such lethal actions against commercial shipping are not justified. Spoke to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio this evening.

"I reiterated India's strong protest at the attacks by the U.S. Navy in the Gulf that killed three Indian mariners," he said in the post.

India also officially summoned the Charge d'Affaires of the US Embassy in New Delhi to formally lodge its protest regarding these grave events.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump accused Iran of conducting drone attacks against Indian ships leaving the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump described these actions as "totally unacceptable."

"Their (Iran's) totally rebuffed Drone attack last night against Indian Ships leaving the Hormuz Strait is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. They better get their act together and FAST," President Trump declared on the social media platform Truth Social.

In the same post, Trump also accused Iran of leaking the terms of the peace deal to the media that had nothing to do with the points under discussion.

Iran rejected the charges as "baseless".

"The US president's accusation against Iran regarding an Indian vessel in the Strait of Hormuz is simply baseless," the Iranian Embassy in India said in a social media post late Friday night. "It is an attempt to divert public attention from the brutal fact that the US has attacked 3 Indian vessels in less than a week and killed 3 innocent Indian sailors. That's pathetic!" it said.

A Palau-flagged oil tanker carrying 24 Indian seafarers was attacked by US forces on Monday. All crew members of the vessel, MT Marivex, were safely rescued. On Wednesday, another Palau-flagged tanker, MT Settebello, was struck, killing three of the 24 Indian sailors on board. The third attack, on a Guinea-Bissau-flagged vessel identified as MT Jalveer, occured on Thursday.

The US imposed a blockade on Iranian ports after Iran effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 20 per cent of global energy supplies are transported.