AFP, Jan 8, 2008
TEHRAN (AFP) - - Iran on Tuesday rejected US charges that its naval forces threatened to blow up American ships in the Strait of Hormuz, amid renewed tensions ahead of US President George W. Bush's visit to the region.
US defence officials said five speedboats from the naval forces of Iran's Revolutionary Guards menaced three US warships in the strategic waterway on Sunday, radioing a threat to blow them up.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the incident as "provocative" and "dangerous", amid fears such an insolated encounter could spark a major confrontation between the two foes.
But Iranian officials expressed bewilderment over the US version of events, saying the encounter was a routine question of identification that ended with nothing special to report.
"What happened between the Guards and foreign vessels was an ordinary identification," Ali Reza Tangsiri, commander of the Guards naval forces in the region, told the Mehr news agency.
"No special engagement took place between the Guards and the foreign side," he said, adding that the Guards naval forces had a right to control and identify "any vessel entering Persian Gulf waters" to the northwest.
State television quoted an unnamed Guards source in the region as saying: "No threatening message was transmitted."
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