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News Middle East
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US complains over Iran incident
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| The Iranian video of the event showed its speedboats some distance from the US vessels [AFP/PRESS TV] |
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The United States has made an official protest to Iran after Iranian speedboats confronted US warships in the Strait of Hormuz.
The diplomatic move on Thursday came as Iran released a videotape showing the crew of a speedboat speaking into a handheld radio while three US vessels floated in the distance.
State-run Press TV said the video was released to counter claims that the Iranians sped towards US ships and threatened to blow them up.
"We have in fact now prepared and given to the Swiss a diplomatic note formally protesting this incident," Tom Casey, US state department spokesman, said.
Tehran and Washington do not have formal diplomatic relations and the Swiss embassy looks after US interests in the country.
A state department official told Reuters news agency that he did not expect to receive a response to the note from the Iranian government.
Casey also insisted that the US Navy's version of the event, which it described as threatening, was correct.
Grainy video
Press TV said that the grainy five-minute, 20-second-long videotape provided by the Revolutionary Guards on Thursday showed the crew of an Iranian speedboat contacting a US vessel.
"Coalition warship number 73, this is an Iranian patrol," the Iranian commander is heard to say in English, asking for the vessel to confirm its number.
"This is coalition warship number 73. I am operating in international waters," an American voice replies.
The footage did not show the Iranian boats approaching the US ships, unlike a videotape released by the Pentagon on Tuesday.
In Washington, a Pentagon official told the Associated Press news agency that the video appeared to have been taken around the time of Sunday's confrontation, but that the controversial parts of the incident were edited out.
In the Pentagon video small Iranian boats are seen swarming around US warships in the Strait of Hormuz, and in a separate audio recording, a man threatens in English: "I am coming to you... You will explode after ... minutes."
US Navy Commander Lydia Robertson at the 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain said that the two different clips were probably "two different parts of the ship's transit through the strait".
Iran has denied that its boats threatened the US vessels, and accused Washington of fabricating its video.
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