September 12-14
The US naval forces in the Persian Gulf are obligated to speak Farsi during their radio communications with Iran’s forces, Iran’s top admiral in the Gulf has proclaimed.
Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, who is the commander of the Pasdar maritime arm, said, “We have declared to the US warships in the region that they should speak Persian in their radio communications with the Pasdar Naval Forces and they have accepted to do so.”
The Iran Times queried the US Fifth Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain about this report, but it had not responded before the press deadline Tuesday night.
Fadavi did not say where he expected the US Navy to find enough Farsi speakers to man all of the US ships; generally there are two to three dozen US ships in the Fifth Fleet operating in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
Iran vehemently opposes the presence of any US military forces in the region, so the demand that US forces speak Farsi appeared to be recognition that they were going to stay.
Fadavi’s demand for Farsi, however, ignored the fact that English is the language of international maritime and aviation communications. No one in the Iranian armed forces has ever before contested that.