Iran warned this week of a stronger response if it encounters U.S. assets near its airspace again.
“The downing of the American drone was an experience for them not to violate our borders. But, if they do it, the Armed Forces will give them a stronger reaction,” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said, according to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency on Thursday.
Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani: “The downing of their drone was a good experience for them to avoid any aggression against our borders. Iran’s reaction will be stronger if they repeat their mistake of violating our borders.” https://t.co/wPvGBiSquK
— Holly Dagres (@hdagres) June 27, 2019
Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy, Rear Adm. Ali Reza Tangsiri, also made a similar threat on Thursday.
“We would respond decisively to any threat and act of aggression,” Tangsiri said, adding that Iran’s shooting down of a U.S drone should serve as a warning and demonstrate Iran’s willingness to act without hesitation, Tasnim News Agency also reported.
Tangsiri added that Iran’s “crushing, precise and courageous” action shows Iran’s control over the region and ability to confront hostile threats.
Iran shot down the U.S. Navy RQ-4 Global Hawk drone near its border on June 20, claiming the drone was violating Iranian airspace.
Iranian Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh claimed the action was “a message to American terrorists in the region” and said that Iranian forces could have shot down the nearby U.S. Navy P-8 aircraft and killed 35 on board.
Iran filed a complaint against the U.S. to the United Nations Security Council, claiming the U.S. violated Article 51 of the U.N. Chapter, according to Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Iran’s state media.
The remarks come just days after President Trump warned on Tuesday of “great and overwhelming force” and “obliteration” in response to any attack by Iran.
Trump’s warning followed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s remarks that the White House has been “afflicted by mental retardation and does not know what to do” by imposing sanctions, which he described as “outrageous and idiotic,” the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
Rouhani’s frustrations with U.S. sanctions were echoed by other Iranian officials.
“The useless sanctioning of Islamic Revolution Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei], and the commander of Iranian diplomacy means closing the doors of diplomacy by the US desperate administration,” Abbas Mousavi, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said on Twitter, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
On Monday, Trump signed the order imposing sanctions against Iran and its top leaders, saying that it enacts “hard-hitting sanctions on the supreme leader of Iran and the office of the supreme leader of Iran, and many others,” adding that those entities will be denied “access to key financial resources.”
Trump said the new sanctions are in response to “a series of aggressive behaviors by the Iranian regime in recent weeks, including the recent shooting down of U.S. drones … and many other things,” Trump said.
