Iran boasts its forces can control the Gulf
Iran has the power to control the Gulf as no vessel can cross the vital seaway without coming in range of its sophisticated weaponry, a top aide to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said yesterday.
The sabre-rattling comments from General Rahim Yahya Safavi came a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency accused Iran of stalling its investigation into the country's nuclear drive.
"Responsibility for defending the Persian Gulf has been handed over to the naval forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps," Yahya Safavi was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.
Their missiles can cover the entire width of the Gulf and "no ship can cross it without being within range", the former commander-in-chief of the Guards told IRNA.
"Our armed forces with their defence equipment including missile, air, naval and torpedo capabilities are able to control the Strait of Hormuz."
An estimated 40 percent of the world's oil passes through the narrow channel between Iran and Oman and Iran has warned in the past it could block the waterway if it comes under attack over its nuclear programme.
The Guards are also carrying out air defence war games along with the air force of the regular army, a commander was quoted as saying by IRNA on Monday.
The Revolutionary Guards form the country's ideological army, with their own ground, navy and air forces operating in parallel with the regular armed forces. They are also responsible for Iran's most significant and advanced ballistic missiles including the Shahab-3, which has Israel and US bases in the Gulf within reach.
"The Islamic republic's armed forces including the Guards and 11 million Basij (Iran's volunteer militia) are in full readiness to defend any invasion," the former commander-in-chief of the Guards told IRNA.
Of a potential Israeli attack on Iran, Rahim Safavi said: "The Zionist regime does not have the necessary political, economic and social capabilities to wage a great war."
He also warned the US military force in the region saying they would face "serious danger" in case of war, but said he believed Washington "will definitely not get involved in a fourth front after the Afghanistan, Iraq and Georgia confrontations."
Meanwhile, France joined the United States yesterday in calling for new United Nations sanctions to force Iran to comply with international demands over its contested nuclear programme.
"We have no choice but to work, in the coming days and weeks, on a new sanctions resolution at the Security Council," French foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier told a press conference.
The French warning follows a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's atomic watchdog, that said Iran had not frozen uranium enrichment activities as instructed by the UN.
Chevallier described the report as "extremely worrying."
Comments