Iran’s navy ‘warns off’ chopper

TEHRAN

The Iranian navy said it warned off a foreign helicopter that had approached the site of a naval drill it is conducting in international waters.

A spokesman for the drill, Lieutenant Commander of the Iranian Navy Admiral Seyed Mahmoud Mousavi, told state TV the helicopter left the area immediately after the warning Dec. 25. Iran’s navy began the 10-day drill Dec. 24 in waters beyond the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The naval maneuvers dubbed are due to cover an area stretching from east of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden. Mousavi said according to the international rules, the military units of the trans-regional states are not allowed to enter the exercise zone.

Meanwhile, a senior Iranian lawmaker said Dec. 26 the ongoing naval war games should be seen as a serious warning to the West. “These war games are a warning to the western countries about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” Zohreh Elahian, member of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, told Fars News Agency yesterday.