Iran snubbed US protest over ship incident: official

AFP: Iran has not acknowledged Washington’s protest over an incident between Iranian and US naval forces because it did not use the term “Persian Gulf”, the state news agency IRNA reported on Wednesday. TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran has not acknowledged Washington’s protest over an incident between Iranian and US naval forces because it did not use the term “Persian Gulf”, the state news agency IRNA reported on Wednesday.

“On January 10 the American government sent a message via the Swiss embassy to the foreign ministry about the circumstances of the incident between Iran’s naval forces and US ships,” said a ministry director for the Americas, Ali Akbar Rezai.

“But the foreign ministry did not accept and returned it over twice using the incomplete term of Gulf instead of the Persian Gulf,” he said, adding that Iran “will consider the content after the text is corrected.”

The US accused Iranian Revolutionary Guards of harassing and threatening to blow up three US warships in an encounter in early January in the Straits of Hormuz, an strategic passage for the world’s oil supplies.

Iran denied the claims and said the encounter was a routine identification.

The United States said on January 10 that it had made a formal protest to Iran through the Swiss embassy, which looks after US interests in the absence of diplomatic ties.

Iran insists the body of water between its southern coast and the Arabian peninsula should be referred to only by its historic name the “Persian Gulf.”