The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Minister Abbas Araqchi discussed, during two phone calls with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan and his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, the recent US strikes targeting Iran.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said, in a statement, that Araqchi condemned what he described as “American military aggression” and the violation of Iran’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity, stressing “the inherent and legitimate right of the Iranian armed forces to respond in kind to these attacks.”
This comes after the US Central Command (Centcom) announced the implementation of three waves of air strikes targeting Iranian air defense systems, ground control stations and radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz, in response to the downing of an American Apache helicopter.
Centcom had described the strikes as a “proportionate response to the unjustified Iranian aggression,” while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced the targeting of the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain with drones, hinting at “severer” responses if hostilities continued.
Araqchi stressed that his country reserves its right to self-defense, in conjunction with a broad diplomatic move that included contacts with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt and France to inform them of the latest developments related to the military escalation.
