“Breaking: Our Navy operates in – yes, correct – the Persian Gulf, not the Gulf of Mexico,” Iran’s top diplomat said in a recent tweet on Wednesday.
“[The] Question is what [the] US Navy [is] doing 7,500 miles from home,” he added, criticizing the US Navy’s presence in the Persian Gulf.
His remarks came after reports of a close encounter between an Iranian vessel and the US warship USS Mahan in the Persian Gulf.
US officials claimed that the Iranian vessel has come within just 1,000 yards of the USS Mahan in the Persian Gulf on Monday.
The US officials said the Iranian “fast-attack craft” had its weapons manned, to which the USS Mahan responded by manning its own weapons, sounding the danger signal, firing a flare and altering course to avoid the oncoming Iranian ship.