A lawmaker said Iran will not allow the US to routinely make "aggressive moves" in the Persian Gulf.
Qasem Jasemi, a member of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, made the statement in an interview with ICANA on Saturday, in response to recent claims by a US defense official that this year, the US warships confronted Iranian forces twice as often as last year, where "Iranian vessels act as the aggressors every time".
Jasemi said these confrontations result from the "aggressive nature" of US forces who have not yet abandoned their "hostile" efforts to "cause panic" near Iran's territorial waters, which started right after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. "The Islamic Republic will never tolerate aggressive acts of western powers, especially the US, in the Persian Gulf, while Iran respects international norms," he said.
Last Monday, Fox News reported an unnamed US defense official as alleging that the number of "unprofessional and/or unsafe interactions" between Iranian vessels and the US warships in the Persian Gulf nearly doubled in the first half of 2016 compared with the same period of last year.
"That's a disturbing rise and it has continued into the second half of the year," the official said.
