Islamabad, May 25: Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has on Saturday deemed the United States move to deploy additional troops to the Middle East as an “extremely dangerous” threat to world peace.
Zarif’s comments come hours after US President Donald Trump announced the deployment of additional 1,500 American troops to the Middle East in the midst of rising Iranian threat as a “protective measure”, according to ANI news reports.
In an interview with state-run IRNA, before departing to Iran to for an official two-day visit to Pakistan, Zarif stated the US imposing baseless allegations against Tehran just to prove its policy towards the nation.
The top Iranian envoy added the move would only encourage “simmer tensions” in the region of Persian Gulf.
The US department of defense was considering to send additional 5,000 American troops to the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran, as told by two US officials to Reuters on Wednesday.
The official, while speaking on a condition of anonymity, stated the request has been made by the US central command, but however, added it was unclear whether the Pentagon would green flag the request. One of the US officials said the request to Pentagon would be defensive in nature.
Also read: It’s ‘quite possible’ Iran behind Gulf attacks, US’ Mike Pompeo says
US President Donald Trump administration has on Tuesday said it was “quite possible” that Iran was behind the sabotage of Persian Gulf oil interests, but, stated vigorous response had helped to stop potential attacks on Americans.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has said Washington had made no “definitive conclusion” that could be presented publicly on sabotage incidents of Saudi Arabian oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), even drone attack over crude oil shipments and pipelines in Saudi Arabia.
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Explosive-laden drones attacked oil facilities near capital Riyadh, Saudi Arabia says