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Zarif Says U.S. Troops Deployment To Persian Gulf Is 'Very Dangerous' To Peace


PAKISTAN -- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif attends meeting with Pakistani officials at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, May 24, 2019
PAKISTAN -- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif attends meeting with Pakistani officials at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, May 24, 2019

The Islamic Republic of Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has reacted to U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement about the deployment of 1500 U.S. troops to the Middle East, calling the measure" Very dangerous for international peace and stability."

Zarif who was visiting Pakistan, made the comment before returning to Iran on Saturday May 25, adding that the measure "should be confronted with," the Rouhani administration's Twitter account PadDolat reported.

According to the Iranian official news agency IRNA, Zarif has said that the new deployment was aimed at "justifying the United States' hostile policy to create tension in the Middle East."

This comes while the number of troops to be deployed to the region is far less that what the press had reported during the past week.

A May 24 tweet, Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan announced that "The Department of Defense has informed Congress I approved the combatant commander's request to deploy approximately 1,500 additional troops & defensive capabilities to the CENTCOM area to increase our force protection posture. This is a prudent response to credible threats from Iran."

Earlier reports said that the Pentagon was going to deploy 10,000 troops to the region as tensions between Iran and the United States continued to rise during the week.

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