Tehran, June 21: Iran has called the United States’s unmanned plane “provocative”, as well as, “very dangerous” on Thursday as it tried to justify the downing of an American spy drone by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the Pentagon has described as an “unprovoked attack” in the international airspace.
According to Al-Jazeera news reports, in a letter to the United Nations security council (UNSC) and UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, Majid Takht Ravanchi, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, has called the aircraft a “blatant violation of international law”.
“While the Islamic Republic of Iran does not seek war, it reserves its inherent right … to take all appropriate necessary measures against any hostile act violating its territory, and is determined to vigorously defend its land, sea, and air,” Ravanchi said.
The ambassador added, “This is not the first provocative act by the United States against Iran’s territorial integrity.”
US President Donald Trump had initially said Tehran had “made a very big mistake”, but later he stated the downing of a US spy drone was not “intentional”, in a turnaround in the midst of rising fears of heightening frictions between the two nations could develop an open confrontation.
The US president said, “I find it hard to believe it was intentional,” further adding, “I think probably Iran made a mistake – I would imagine it was a general or somebody that made a mistake in shooting that drone down.”
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has on Thursday issued an emergency order prohibiting American operators from flying aircraft in an overwater region of Iran-controlled airspace over the Hormuz Strait and Gulf of Oman in the midst of heightened tensions in the Middle East after oil tankers attacks.
Washington prohibited American civilian flights flying over Iran-controlled airspace due to “heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the region”.
The development has come hours after the United Airlines halted its flights between the Indian financial capital of Mumbai and New Jersey’s Newark airport, which fly through the Iranian airspace, following some safety review after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed yesterday they shot down a US spy drone.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued Thursday an emergency order prohibiting US air carriers from flying in an overwater area of Tehran-controlled airspace over the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman due to heightened tensions, Reuters reported.
Also read: US FAA prohibits airlines from flying over Iran-controlled airspace