On Tuesday, a United States military official said that the Iranian navy, in an act that was described as “highly provocative”, fired several rockets on 26 December within 1,500 metres of USS Truman.
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“Publication of such false news under the present circumstances is more of a psychological warfare”, Sharif said in comments posted on the Revolutionary Guard’s website.
“The Guards naval force had no exercise in the past week when the Americans claim that a missile or rocket was sacked in the Hormuz Strait area”, spokesman General Ramezan Sharif said.
According to the US military, IRGC naval forces fired numerous rockets Saturday, which hit just about a mile away from the USS Harry S. Truman in the Strait of Hormuz, AFP reports.
Cmdr Raines said the Iranian vessels announced over maritime radio that they’d carry out a live fire exercise only 23 minutes beforehand.
The Truman, accompanied by two warships from the US-led coalition supporting air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants in Iraq and Syria, was entering the Gulf through the Hormuz Strait on a routine transit when the incident occurred, he said.
Provocations like this will further concerns some members of Congress have about the landmark deal on Iran’s nuclear program, especially the sanction relief part of the agreement.
Tabnak said that Western news reports about the episode were an attempt to “undermine Iran’s capability to provide regional marine safety”.
“A rush to sanctions relief threatens to embolden an increasingly aggressive Iranian regime that has no intention of normalizing relations with the West or of retreating from a malign policy meant to destabilize the Middle East”, McCain said in a statement released Wednesday.
President Hassan Rouhani has ordered the accelerated production of missiles in response to USA plans to impose new sanctions.
This incident takes place within a significant broader U.S.- Iranian context because the much-discussed nuclear deal between the two countries took a major step forward recently. It is unclear how far the United Nations or United States will go to respond to the violations – though on Wednesday, the Treasury Department notified Capitol Hill of new pending sanctions against 11 individuals and entities accused of supporting Iran’s ballistic missile program.
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The launch in November followed a much more publicized ballistic missile launch inside Iran in October, which drew condemnation from U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power.
