Iran attempted on Monday to make light of the arrival of a US aircraft carrier in the Arabian Gulf, dismissing the development as “insignificant.”
“The presence of this warship is insignificant to us,” navy commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency.
Sayyari said the US navy was allowed to sail in international waters near Iran, just as the Iranian navy could sail in the Atlantic Ocean near US waters.
The USS John C. Stennis entered the Gulf on Friday, ending a long absence of US aircraft carriers in the region as tensions rise between Tehran and Washington.
Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels shadowed the Stennis and its strike group, at one point launching rockets away from it and flying a drone nearby, reported The Associated Press.
