TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Chief Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hussein Salami has warned enemies against approaching Iran’s borders, saying there is no safe zone for hostile aircraft carriers within or outside of Iran’s territorial waters.
General Salami made his comments on Thursday in a ceremony dedicated to Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, who is regarded as the father of Iran’s missile program.
The IRGC commander touched on Iran’s fast attack boats which are equipped with missiles, saying "the enemy’s aircraft carriers will no longer be safe in any spot”.
U.S. sanctions, he said, have stimulated the rapid development of Iran’s defense technologies, turning Iranian "ballistic missiles into precision-guided ones”. Iran’s reinforced defense, missile and drone capabilities will "give the harshest response to the enemy’s slightest mistake”, he said.
Iran has accumulated a large arsenal of domestically-built conventional short-, medium- and long-range ballistic and cruise missile systems.
Iran has insisted that the missiles are meant as a deterrent against possible enemy attack, and repeatedly stressed that their possession is "not negotiable” for the Islamic Republic.
Earlier this month, Iran destroyed a second U.S. spy drone in recent months and retrieved its wreckage near the southwestern port city of Mahshahr. The Pentagon said all U.S. equipment "has been accounted for” and denied having any American drone shot down in the region.
The chief commander of Iran's Army said on Thursday regional countries cannot rely on outsiders to provide security of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, stressing that false coalitions established by foreign countries will fail to keep the strategic region and the key waterway secure.
"Security of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf can only be achieved through the establishment of intra-regional cooperation and not through false coalitions,” Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi said, adding, "So, it is time that foreign forces pulled out of the region."
The top military commander emphasized that defending Iran’s "vital and sensitive facilities" enjoys "strategic" priority, noting that the Army attaches special importance to the issue.  
General Mousavi also said Iran has obtained self-sufficiency in manufacturing military equipment for all kinds of ground, air and maritime missions. "The Islamic Republic of Iran will be the victor of any possible future conflict."
"Enemies should know that the great Iranian nation and the powerful Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will never yield to insult, humiliation and weakening of their resources and will not submit to the demands of powers suffering from delusions of grandeur," Mousavi said.
Earlier this month, the spokesman for Iran's Armed Forces said in case of any aggression against the Islamic Republic, Iranian forces will target the interests of the United States and its allies at any place and on any territory.