On Tuesday, the United States sent a warning to Iran, in which the US Navy ordered the Gulf sailors not to approach the US warships at a distance of 100 meters.
Otherwise, they will be “construed as a threat and subject to legal safeguards”.
The notification for sailors, first reported by Reuters, follows the threat that came last month from the US President Donald Trump, who was called upon to fire on any Iranian ships that are harassing Navy ships.
“Armed vessels approaching within 100 meters of a US naval vessel could be construed as a threat”, – the statement said.
This follows an incident last month when 11 Iranian vessels approached US naval forces and Gulf Coast Guard vessels, which the US military called “dangerous and provocative” behavior.
One day, Iranian vessels entered 10 yards (9 meters) from the US coast guard boat Maui, the US military said. The Trump threat followed this incident, which Tehran, in turn, said was the fault of the United States.
The head of Iran’s elite revolutionary guard responded to Trump, threatening to destroy US warships if his security was threatened in the Persian Gulf.
These events are just the latest example of acute tension between Washington and Tehran, which has been steadily increasing since 2018, when Trump refused Iran’s nuclear deal in 2015 with six world powers and imposed new harsh sanctions.
Hostility reached historic heights in early January, when the United States killed Iran’s top military commander Kassem Suleimani as a result of a drone strike in Baghdad.
On January 9, Iran retaliated by firing missiles at bases in Iraq, causing one of them to have brain injuries in American soldiers.
Close interaction with Iranian military courts was not uncommon in 2016 and 2017. On several occasions, the US Navy ships fired warning shots at Iranian ships when they came too close.