Alireza Tangsiri said on Sunday that when US forces enter the Persian Gulf, Iranian forces warn them away.
“There is an international waterway in the Persian Gulf but there are no international waters,” Tangsiri said.
“The oil in the Persian Gulf belongs to Iran and its neighbors… When the enemies enter the Persian Gulf, our youths warn them sternly that they have no right to enter this waterway and they hold their heads down and change direction. We are the victors in this unequal fight against the enemies,” he added.
He said Iran would never back away from its interests.
“Ninety percent of our trade is [conducted] via the sea. Even our oil and gas are extracted from the sea [basin]. If we don’t have [naval] carriers and missiles, we won’t have a livelihood either,” he added.
Tangsiri said that during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Iranian forces rendered one US aircraft carrier ineffective “with empty hands” in retaliation for the targeting of several Iranian oil tankers and other vessels by the US military.
