Israeli Threats in Region Intolerable to Iran: Top Commander
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran will by no means tolerate the process of espionage and threats posed by the Israeli regime’s participation in the US Central Command’s military activities and its normalization of ties with a number of regional countries, the chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces said.
“A number of regional countries have exposed the region to a series of threats by normalizing ties with the Zionist regime. Moreover, the Zionist regime’s joining the terrorist US Central Command could create threats to us. So we do not tolerate such presence of the Zionist regime,” Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri said in a military event in Iran’s southern port city of Bandar Abbas on Sunday, during which a number of new military watercraft joined the Iranian Navy’s fleet.
“Apart from the course of (lodging) protest via the country’s foreign policy, we announce that we do not tolerate such an expansion of process of espionage and creation of threats (from Israel) and will by no means compromise on the Iranian nation’s rights and the security of our seas and territories,” the top general underlined.
He further noted that the enemies are trying to make up for a decline in the number of their forces in the Middle East by resorting to various methods such as creating new units.
Reports suggest that the enemies launch and deploy small unmanned reconnaissance units in the waters, which pose a risk to maritime security, the general added.
“We believe that the maritime security laws and freedom of navigation in the international waters must be enforced equally for everyone. We fully safeguard such right of our nation,” Major General Baqeri stated.
Iran will use the international mechanisms and lodge complaints to the international maritime organizations through the course of diplomacy, he added, saying, “We make it clear that our vessels will not tolerate such (foreign unmanned) units in their routes and will take action against them in the same way that it has already happened.”
His comments came a few days after the Iranian Navy’s Jamaran destroyer seized two American maritime drones and then released them in a safe area in the Red Sea as means of preventing naval accidents.
The destroyer encountered the “data collecting” vessels during a routine operation aimed at securing shipping routes and confronting piracy and maritime terrorism, the Navy said in a statement on Thursday.
The Iranian warship then called on the American authorities in charge of the sail drones to change the vessels’ direction “in order to prevent accidents and naval collisions,” read the statement.
Two days earlier, the naval forces of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) briefly seized one such American unmanned surface vessel that had been stranded in the Persian Gulf.
Taking “timely action,” the IRGC Navy captured the naval drone, whose “navigational system had failed.”
The US Navy tried to portray the development as an unprovoked attempt by the IRGC to capture the military vessel.