Iran rejects reports of a confrontation in the Persian Gulf between Iranian speedboats and a US Navy warship, an Iranian official says.
"There was no hostile encounter," an official from Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps told Press TV.
"Iranian boats carried out a routine check of the vessels," the official who spoke on condition of anonymity added.
The Associated Press had earlier quoted the US navy as claiming that its ship, the USS Typhoon, fired a flare towards an approaching Iranian boat Thursday to make it stay away.
The whole event was a normal identification process, the Iranian official reiterated.
Talking to IRNA, an informed Iranian source had earlier dismissed reports based on US claims, saying that no confrontation had occurred and the incident was nor more than a routine check.
The reports that three small Iranian boats approached the USS Typhoon late Thursday echo previous accusations against Tehran.
In January, the US Navy and the Pentagon accused Iranian speedboats of 'harassing' US warships in the Strait of Hormuz and released doctored video footage of the incident.
Later, however, the Pentagon attempted to back away from its initial claim as evidence surfaced that the voice heard in the footage could not have possibly originated from the Iranian speedboats.
The Navy Times later published a report suggesting that the broadcast could have originated from an infamous radio prankster called the 'Filipino Monkey'.
MK/GM
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