The international community should make every effort to prevent a military scenario from developing against the background of the aggravation of the situation between the United States and Iran after mutual threats, the head of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Konstantin Kosachev told TASS.
"It is clear that the escalation may occur on the initiative of either side, and, what is particularly disturbing, each has reserved the right to military action on purely subjective grounds. Washington talks about the dangerous closeness of ships, and Tehran - about security threats. But no one knows what distance or threat everyone will consider sufficient for their own attack," he said.
In this situation, according to him, "everything depends on the intentions of the commanders themselves," and so far "we can only assume that no one clearly wants war and the reputation of the aggressor."
However, both sides are capable of decisive responses, and therefore, according to the Senator, the international community "should say "break" in this situation and try to separate the opponents."
At the same time, Kosachev recalled that incidents involving ships of the two countries do not occur in the Gulf of Mexico, but near the Iranian borders, and "the approach of warships of the world's most powerful fleet, accompanied by the bellicose rhetoric of the US leader, also logically feels like a direct threat."
"Let's hope that in fact both of them are working on the internal agenda, demonstrating their readiness for decisive actions at home, but not their desire to apply them in the near future," Kosachev concluded.
Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter that he had ordered the Navy to destroy any Iranian boats that create obstacles to American vessels at sea.
The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, responded by saying that the Iranian armed forces are ready to attack US ships that threaten the country's security.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Federation Council