Iran Guards vow ‘decisive response’ after Trump threat

TEHRAN: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief on Thursday warned the US of a “decisive response” after President Donald Trump said he ordered the US Navy

to destroy Iranian boats that harass American ships in the Gulf. Iran and the United States have appeared to be on the brink of an all-out confrontation twice in the past year. Decades-old acrimony between the two sides worsened in 2018 when Trump unilaterally withdrew from a deal that gave Iran relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

Tensions escalated further in January when a US air strike killed Qasem Soleimani, the top Iranian general who headed the Guards’ foreign arm, the Quds Force. “We declare to the Americans that we are absolutely

determined and serious... and that all action will be met with a decisive response that will be efficient and quick,” Major General Hossein Salami said. “We have also ordered our naval units to target (US boats and forces) if they try to endanger the safety of our ships or boats of war.”

The latest confrontation between the arch-foes came after the United States accused Iran of harassing its ships in the Gulf last week. Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday as the Guards said they had launched the Islamic republic’s first military satellite. The US president said he had “instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea”.

On Thursday, France condemned Iran’s satellite launch, calling it a “worrying development”. Iran must cease “all activity linked to the development of ballistic missiles designed to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons, including space launchers,” said a spokesperson for the French foreign ministry. Iran meanwhile summoned the Swiss ambassador to Tehran, who represents US interests in the Islamic republic, state media said. —AFP