US President Barack Obama asked the Iranian authorities to return the RQ-170 reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle, which was at the disposal of the Iranian military
He stated this today, speaking at a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. “We asked (the Iranian authorities) to return him. Now let's wait for Tehran's response,”the American leader told reporters.
During the press conference, Barack Obama did not specify the details of the crash of the drone, and also did not talk about the mission that this vehicle carried out over the territory of the Islamic republic.
"The circumstances of the incident are being clarified," ITAR-TASS quotes Obama. On December 4, Iranian sources reported that the country's air defense forces shot down an RQ-170, which violated Iranian airspace from the east, as evidence of which a corresponding video was circulated in Tehran.
According to the Iranian military, they managed to land the UAV almost intact, "catching" it in a kind of "electronic trap" over their territory about 225 km from the border with Afghanistan. In turn, an official representative of the US administration said on December 5 that "there is no information that the Iranians shot down this apparatus."
According to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF), it could have been a UAV that was on a mission over Afghan territory but was lost. However, later reports began to appear that the drone was collecting intelligence information about Iran. At the end of last week, the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, General Hossein Salami, already told local television that Tehran did not intend to return the downed drone to Washington.
“No one will ever greet a foreign intelligence apparatus over their territory and will not return it. Any country would regard such an incident as a hostile act that poses a threat to national security,”the general stressed.
According to him, Iranian military experts will conduct a thorough study of the trophy at their disposal.
