Saudi Arabia has reportedly warned it will retaliate if Iran continues to intrude on the airspace and waters around its offshore oil facilities in the Persian Gulf, and reserves the right to retaliate, as Tehran's firing at a U.S. drone last week raises concerns about an escalation in tensions in the region.
Saudi Arabia
has
reportedly warned it will retaliate if
Iran
continues to intrude on the airspace and waters around its offshore oil
facilities in the
Persian Gulf
, and reserves the right to
retaliate, as
Tehran
's
firing at a
U.S.
drone
last week raises concerns about an escalation in tensions in the region.
Saudi Arabia
's
envoy to the United Nations, Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, has written to UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon about Iranian intrusions on its offshore oil facilities,
the official Kuwait News Agency reported this week.
"The Government of the
Kingdom
of
Saudi
Arabia
reserves its right to take any action it deems fit
in order to protect its waters and oil installations, and holds the Iranian
authorities fully responsible for all possible consequences," he wrote,
according to the report.
In the letter, the Saudi envoy said that in July an Iranian helicopter hovered
several times over oil-rig sites in the Hasba field, and on another occasion
two Iranian military launches intercepted and stopped a vessel belonging to a
Saudi Aramco contractor in the
Arabia
field
area.
He also said the Saudi Foreign ministry had already sent a letter to its
Iranian counterpart demanding such incidents aren't repeated.
"Those two fields are Saudi Arabian offshore fields, as set forth in the
agreement concluded between the
Kingdom
of
Saudi
Arabia
and...
Iran
in
1968, in which the line demarcating the border between the two countries'
offshore fields is delineated," Al-Mouallimi said in the letter, according
to KUNA.
The Saudi mission at the UN and the Saudi and Iranian foreign ministries didn't
return requests for comment. The UN press office didn't respond to calls.
The Saudi complaint comes after Iranian fighter planes shot at an unarmed
American drone last week in an unprecedented air attack, according to a
Pentagon official.
In recent months, the West has ratcheted up pressure on
Iran
over
its nuclear program. The
U.S.
and
European Union suspect the program has military objectives--an allegation that
has been repeatedly denied by
Tehran
.
The incidents have raised concerns over military escalation in the key shipping
lanes of the
Persian Gulf
.
Iran
has
repeatedly threatened to block the
Strait of Hormuz
,
through which a fifth of the world's traded oil passes on a daily basis.
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