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IRGC: U.S. Navy Video, Audio "Fabricated"; Iranian FM: Claims Of Iranian Speedboat Threats "Propaganda" Connected To Bush Middle East Visit
Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said today that the U.S. video of the January 5 incident in the Strait of Hormuz involving Iranian patrol boats and U.S. warships was archive footage and that the audio was faked. An IRGC navy commander told Press TV that in the matter of Washington's claims that IRGC speedboats had harassed three U.S. Navy warships, "the footage released by the U.S. navy are file pictures and the audio has been fabricated." Meanwhile, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar dismissed as propaganda the U.S. Navy claim that the Iranian craft had threatened to blow up the U.S. warships, saying that the Iranian navy's monitoring of ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz is a routine task. Najjar also called depicting this normal procedure as a provocation a "project" by the White House to portray Iran as a frightening country, and connected it to President Bush's visit to the region. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini also played down the incident, saying it was an issue of mistaken identity and comparing it to “previous ones” that had been resolved “once the two sides recognized each other,” Hosseini explained. Iranian Foreign Ministry director of American affairs Ahmad Sobhani said that the Iranian speed boats had carried out a normal and legal act. On Tuesday, Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel had described U.S. reports about the incident as "part of a psychological and propaganda campaign against the Islamic Republic" (see Iranian Parliamentary Speaker: Persian Gulf Incident "U.S. Propaganda Against Iran"). Sources: Mehr, Iran, January 8, 2008; ISNA, IRNA, Mehr, Iran, January 9, 2008
Posted at: 2008-01-09
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