Iran navy to send warships to Atlantic from March, top commander says
Iran navy to send warships to Atlantic from March, top commander says
The Iranian navy will send warships to deploy in the Atlantic from March, a top commander said on Friday.
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The warships will head to the Atlantic in March [AFP]
Iran's navy will deploy warships to the Atlantic Ocean from March, a top naval commander said on Friday, as Tehran works to expand the operating range of its naval fleet.
The warships will head to the Atlantic in March at the start of the Iranian new year.
"The Atlantic Ocean is far and the operation of the Iranian naval flotilla might take five months," Rear-Admiral Touraj Hassani was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA.
The flotilla will include the newly-built destroyer Sahand, equipped with anti-aircraft and anti-ship guns, and has surface-to-surface and surface-to air missiles and electronic warfare potential, Hassani said.
Tehran will also send up to three vessels to Venezuela in December, he added.
Last month, a US aircraft carrier sailed to the Arab Gulf for the first time since America's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
Iranian ships had periodically made high-speed approaches to US vessels that Washington considered dangerous provocations.
The incidents at sea typically involve the Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that reports to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In 2017, the worst incident occured when 10 US sailors were captured and held overnight for straying into Iran's territorial waters.
Iranian forces in turn accuse the US Navy of unprofessional behavior, especially in the Strait of Hormuz, the mouth of the Arab Gulf, through which a third of all oil traded by sea passes.
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