20 (EUROPA PRESS)
The Iranian Navy has assured this Wednesday that one of its submarines has forced another from the United States Navy to surface in the Strait of Hormuz, a habitual focus of tensions and a strategic point for the transport of fuel, something that the US Fifth Fleet has been quick to deny.
The commander of the Iranian Naval Forces, Shahram Irani, has declared on state television that an American submarine, the ‘USS Florida’, was detected with sonar signals after it entered Iranian territorial waters.
The maneuvers of an Iranian submarine “forced it to leave and cross the strait on the surface,” according to the commander, who has urged the US authorities to explain the reasons for the movements of his ship. The United States, he added, “must comply with all international regulations.”
The US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain and responsible for the entire area, has dismissed the Iranian version as “absolutely false”, alleging that its submarine has not sailed through the Strait of Hormuz “recently”. For Washington, it is only “more disinformation” from Tehran, which intends to “destabilize the region.”
The United States Armed Forces had reported on April 8 the deployment of the submarine, with the capacity to transport more than 150 Tomahawk missiles, under the premise of “guaranteeing maritime security and regional stability” in the Persian Gulf area.
This deployment follows last month’s US attacks on pro-Iranian militias in Syria following the death of an American contractor during an Iranian-made drone strike on a US military facility in the north-east of the Arab republic. .
