Iran has warned the US against setting up a multinational task force to protect navigation in the Red Sea.
The United States said last week it was in talks with other countries to set up a task force following a spate of attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen on ships in the Red Sea.
Iran’s Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani warned that a proposed US-backed multinational task force to protect shipping in the Red Sea would face “extraordinary problems”.
“If they make such an irrational move, they will be faced with extraordinary problems,” Ashtiani told the official Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) in comments it published on Thursday.
“Nobody can make a move in a region where we have predominance,” he said, referring to the Red Sea.
Ashtiani did not specify what measures Iran was prepared to take in response to the setting up of a US-backed Red Sea task force.
In an interview with CBS, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian denied that his country was responsible for a drone attack in the Red Sea that appeared to be targeting a US missile destroyer.
He explained to the Financial Times newspaper that according to military experts, the arrival of US ships in the Mediterranean was not in Washington’s interest because it increased the possibility of attacks on its fleets.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters last week that Washington was in talks with “other countries” over forming a “maritime task force … to ensure safe passage of ships in the Red Sea,” but did not give further details.
Yemen’s Houthis, which are aligned with Iran, have waded into the Israel-Hamas conflict by attacking vessels in vital shipping lanes and firing drones and missiles at Israel more than 1,000 miles from Sanaa.
American and French navies have strengthened their presence in the Red Sea to protect vessels from the risk of seizure or attack by the Houthis.
In November 2019, a multinational maritime security initiative, Coalition Task Force (CTF) Sentinel, was also established to protect the regional waters following a series of Iranian attacks that targeted commercial vessels in the Arabian Gulf, and the Gulf of Oman.
The coalition consists of Albania, Bahrain, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, the UAE, the UK, and the US. The coalition’s task then expanded to include the Bab al-Mandeb and Strait of Hormuz.
In parallel, France led a European maritime coalition consisting of the Netherlands, Denmark, and Italy dubbed European Maritime Awareness in the Strait of Hormuz. The European force was headquartered in the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi.
