Iran minister defends encounter with US warship
BEIRUT- Iran's defence minister said on Thursday four of his country's vessels accused of harassing a US warship were only doing their job, and Tehran would contront any American ship that entered its waters.
The vessels from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) conducted what a US defence official described as a "high speed intercept" of the warhip on Tuesday in the Strait of Hormuz.
The official said two of the Iranian vessels came within 300 yards of the USS Nitze in an incident that was "unsafe and unprofessional," underlining the tensions that remain more than a year after Washington and other Western powers reached a landmark nuclear deal with Iran and lifted sanctions.
