TEHRAN -- A senior Iranian lawmaker on Saturday hailed a recent operation by the naval forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) to release a stolen Iranian oil shipment captured by the United States, saying the Islamic Republic reserves the right to sue the U.S. over its failed act of piracy.
Speaking to IRNA, member of parliament’s Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Shahriar Haydari said the promotion of Iran’s naval power is a matter of serious concern for the U.S. that sought to show off its own power, but its failed attempt only brought disgrace and humiliation to the Americans.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran reserves the right to sue the U.S. and pursue the case, and Iran’s diplomatic apparatus must follow up on the issue in international forums,” Haydari added.
The IRGC’s navy released a video on Wednesday showing Iranian forces landing on the deck of a tanker that had seized an Iranian oil shipment in an “act of piracy”. They then navigated the vessel toward Iranian waters. The incident had taken place on October 25.
Earlier, American forces had confiscated a tanker carrying the cargo of Iranian oil in the strategic Sea of Oman and had transferred its consignment of crude to the IRGC-captured MV Sothys, a Vietnamese-flagged ship.
In a statement, the IRGC said that after the American forces had transferred the crude to the second vessel, “timely and powerful” action by the Guards’ servicemen “frustrated the operation by the terrorist U.S. army’s naval forces to steal the Islamic Republic of Iran’s oil in the Sea of Oman.”
Haydari further said U.S. efforts to steal the Iranian oil shipment in the Sea of Oman contravened maritime regulations and international conventions.
“All countries must abide by the rules and regulations of international conventions and the U.S. act of piracy violated these regulations,” the lawmaker added.
He emphasized that such provocative measures would only escalate tensions, which would be detrimental to all regional countries, warning that those states that host “bases for the U.S. in the region should know that the U.S. only seeks tension and discord in the region.”
The Islamic Republic acts quite decisively to defend its rights, he said, praising the IRGC Navy’s timely action to prevent the U.S. from hijacking the tanker carrying Iranian oil.
Haydari urged regional countries to take lessons from the incident and be watchful of the U.S. acts of provocation.
IRGC Chief Commander Major
General Hussein Salami said on Thursday that the United States is accustomed to suffering back-to-back defeat from Iran but has yet to learn a lesson.
“The Americans are used to constantly suffering defeats at the hands of the Iranian people, but of course, this has not yet become a lesson for them. The decline of the United States has begun, and on the contrary, we have increasingly been boosting political vitality and revolutionary enthusiasm and our establishment has been reaching higher levels of power day by day,” Salami said.