Sinking of ‘unarmed’ ship can’t go unpunished: Iranian minister

Iranian deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh on Friday said the sinking of an “unarmed” Iranian warship by the US away from the combat zone cannot be allowed to pass “with impunity.”

- Rezaul H Laskar

He stated that Iran has no option but to resist to the last soldier in an “existential war” started by Israel and the US, even as negotiations were still underway.

Khatibzadeh, who arrived in India hours after a US submarine torpedoed and sank the frigate IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka on Wednesday, insisted the warship was ina noncombat configuration as it was returning from amulti-nation exercise hosted by India. “This is a very unfortunate incident. That vessel was [here] on the invitation of our Indian friends...[t was a ceremonial [event], it was unarmed and the only precedent for that was during the Nazi times, when they attacked unarmed vessels away from the combat zone,” Khatibzadeh told reporters on the margins of the Raisina Dialogue.

“Americans are exercising the practices of Nazi Germany when they attacked a ceremonial, unarmed and unloaded vessel...Many young Iranian sailors attending this exercise lost their lives and it cannot go with impunity for those who did that,” he said.