“Regardless of any decision made by the United States, we will not allow any act of intrusion into the Islamic Republic territory, and we are ready to confront any threat to the integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he told Tasnim News Agency on Saturday.
The remarks came as US President Donald Trump claimed on Friday that he had called off a strike against Iranian sites because they were not proportional to downing a drone by the IRGC, which had violated the Iranian airspace.
“Our decisions are not subject to their [US] decisions and we will confront aggression whether they level threats or not,” Mousavi added.
IRGC said Thursday that a 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. Despite US claims that the drone had been flying over international waters, Iran says it has retrieved sections of drone in its own territorial waters where it was shot down. Foreign Minister Zarif said in a tweet hours after the incident that Iran would “take this new aggression to UN & show that the US is lying about international waters.”
Reducing commitments to JCPOA
Elsewhere in his remarks, Mousavi also pointed to Iran’s reduction of commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saying that if European parties to the deal fail to honor their obligations, Iran will take the second step ‘stronger’. “And we have announced what our next step would be," he added.
On May 8, exactly a year after the US pulled out from the JCPOA, Iran revealed countermeasures to US’ withdrawal, giving the other remaining parties to the JCPOA 60 days to comply with their commitments, particularly those regarding Iran’s economic interests in the banking and energy sectors, before reducing portions of its own commitments to the agreement stage by stage.
Mousavi added that Iran’s reduction of commitments to the JCPOA is based on Articles 26 and 36 of the deal. “For now, we have decided to act within the JCPOA framework,” he said.
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