“Confrontation with US warships has occurred time and again, the last instance of which ended up with the arrest of American marines and their subsequent apologies,” said Spokesman of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif.
He went on to add, “after that incident, we witnessed a more lawful behavior from the Americans in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz regions, so if there have been any cuts in the number of confrontations, it is because the US has learned its lessons, otherwise there have been no particular changes in the IRGC Navy’s routine patrols.”
On July 8, US President Donald Trump tweeted US Navy statistics reporting ‘zero’ harassment of US ships by the Iranian Navy in 2018, which stood in contrast with 36 such occurrences in 2016.
While it appeared that Trump was trying to imply that his intimidation tactics had something to do with the lack of confrontation between the Iranian and American navies during his term in office, Iran maintained that the case was because of US’ own decision to cut down on its illegal trespassing into the Persian Gulf waters.
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