Iran has summoned the United Arab Emirates' charge d'affaires to complain about the UAE allowing an American spy drone to be launched from a US military base on the Arab country's territory.
The Emirati envoy was called in on Saturday to receive Iran’s strong protest against the intrusion of the US spy drone into the Iranian airspace after taking off from an American military base in the UAE.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran does not accept the provision of [military] facilities for foreign forces in order to carry out any aggression against the Iranian sea, ground and air frontiers,” director of the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s department for the Persian Gulf affairs said.
He reminded the UAE diplomat that countries cannot shirk responsibility in such cases.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announced on Thursday that its air defense force had shot down an intruding American spy drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.
The IRGC said in a statement that the US-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down by its Air Force near the Kouh-e Mobarak region, which sits in the central district of Jask County, after the aircraft violated Iranian airspace.
Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC Aerospace Division said on Friday that Iran has refrained from shooting down a US plane with 35 people on board that was accompanying the downed American spy drone.
“This plane also entered our airspace and we could have targeted it, but we did not because our purpose behind shooting down the American drone was to give a warning to terrorist American forces,” Hajizadeh added.
In a letter addressed to United Nations Secretary General António Guterres and the UN Security Council on Thursday, Iran condemned the violation of its airspace by the US spy drone, saying that the international community needs to confront Washington's destabilizing actions.
“Iran condemns, in the strongest possible terms, this irresponsible and provocative wrongful act by the United States, which entails its international responsibility,” Majid Takht-e Ravanchi, Iran's ambassador to the UN, wrote in the letter.
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World must seek political solution on Iran: Merkel
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday that the international community must seek a “political solution” on Iran.
“There has to be a political solution (on Iran) and that is what we are working on,” Merkel said while speaking at an annual gathering of Protestant churches.
The German chancellor added that leaders of the Group of 20 leading economies plan to discuss the Iran issue during their next week meeting in Japan, at least at a bilateral level.
Her comments came after The New York Times reported on Friday that US President Donald Trump had initially approved attacks on a handful of Iranian targets, like radar and missile batteries to retaliate against Tehran's downing of the American spy drone.