Iran’s chief of general staff, Ali Abdollahi, said in a statement carried by Iranian state media on Saturday that the United States Navy is incapable of re-entering Iran’s territorial waters or their periphery because Iranian forces can target any vessel in the region, Al Jazeera reported. Abdollahi argued that Washington’s refusal to bring its aircraft carriers and support vessels closer to Iranian territory undercuts US claims that Iran’s military capabilities have mostly been destroyed, and said Iranian forces were determined to mire the United States and Israel in a quagmire in retaliation for the surprise attack on Iran on February 28 that started the war.
The statement followed a meeting in Istanbul on Friday where the foreign ministers of Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt met counterparts from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy, with neither the United States nor Iran present, Al Jazeera reported. Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the ministers agreed a new attack on Iran would widen the war and spread conflict across the region, that military intervention in Iran is not a solution and that no one at the meeting was endorsing it. The four regional ministers issued a joint statement supporting a negotiated settlement, demanding unrestricted passage through the Strait of Hormuz, opposing attacks on civilians and commercial vessels, and condemning Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia.