“The presence of foreign warships, particularly those operated by hegemonic and aggressive powers, does not benefit anyone and the security of the Persian Gulf,” spokesman of Iran Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Seyyed Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, said on Wednesday.
He added that Persian Gulf states should work together to limit the activities of foreign warships and expel them from the region, ISNA News Agency reported.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has always warned against the threat posed by presence of foreign forces in the Persian Gulf. We have always believed and repeated that presence of warships belonging to hegemonic and aggressive powers will not benefit…security of the Persian Gulf and will [even] disturb it,” the lawmaker noted.
“Let’s not forget that the Americans also shot down our Airbus jetliner with [about] 300 people onboard (in July 1988), and have now attacked a fishing boat from the UAE; a country which has had no conflict with the US,” Naqavi Hosseini pointed out.
He stated that the attack indicates that deployment of foreign forces and warships in the Persian Gulf only helps to spread insecurity and tension in the region.
The USNS Rappahannock vessel fired rounds from a .50-calibre machine gun on a small motorboat near the Dubai port of Jebel Ali on Monday, killing one fisherman and injuring three others.
The dead man and his wounded colleagues all came from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
The US Navy says the boat approached at high speed and ignored repeated warnings.
Indian and US officials have launched investigations into the incident.
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A senior Iranian lawmaker calls on the Persian Gulf states to unite for expelling foreign forces from the region in the wake of a deadly US attack on a fishing boat off the coast of the United Arab Emirates .
News ID 182215
