TEHRAN — Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard said Saturday a US Navy aircraft carrier fired a warning shot in an ‘‘unprofessional’’ confrontation with Iranian vessels, the IRNA news agency reported.
IRNA, the official news agency of Iran, quoted a statement from the Guard as saying that the USS Nimitz and an accompanying ship came near an Iranian oil offshore platform in the Persian Gulf.
The statement said a helicopter from the ship hovered near vessels manned by the Revolutionary Guard.
The report said the confrontation took place Friday afternoon and the US Navy ships left the area following the encounter.
The US Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said the incident happened while one of its helicopters was on a routine patrol in international airspace.
The aircraft saw several Guard vessels approaching American ships ‘‘at a high rate of speed’’ and sent out flares after receiving no response when it tried to establish communications, the Navy said.
That prompted the Iranian boats to halt their approach.
After communications were established, the United States saw the Iranians conduct a ‘‘gun exercise.’’
That routine exercise involved them firing weapons into the water away from American ships, said Navy spokesman Lieutenant Ian M. McConnaughey. The Navy described the encounter ‘‘as safe and professional.’’
The incident comes after a US Navy patrol boat fired warning shots Tuesday near an Iranian vessel that American sailors said came dangerously close to them during a tense encounter.
Iran and the United States frequently have run-ins in the Persian Gulf, nearly all involving the Revolutionary Guard, a separate force from Iran’s military that answers only to the country’s supreme leader.
In January, near the end of Barack Obama’s term, the USS Mahan fired shots toward Iranian fast-attack boats as they neared the destroyer in the Strait of Hormuz.
The strait is at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and nearly a third of all oil trade passes by sea.
Also Saturday, Iran’s parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy held an urgent meeting with deputy foreign minister and senior Iranian negotiator Abbas Araghchi in which they reviewed measures that the country may apply in response to a package of sanctions the US Senate approved Friday against Iran and sent to President Trump for signing.
Araghchi told state TV on Saturday that the decision is a ‘‘hostile’’ breach of the deal.
‘‘It is a breach of the deal in articles 26, 28, and 29,’’ said Araghchi. ‘‘A strong answer will be given to the action by the US.’’
On Friday, the United States, France, Germany, and Britain, who brokered the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran along with China, Russia, and the European Union, said they’re raising concerns with the United Nations over Iran’s Thursday launch of a satellite-carrying rocket into space.
In a joint statement, they said that Iran’s launch was ‘‘inconsistent’’ with a UN Security Council resolution that enshrined the nuclear deal.
On Saturday Iran’s foreign ministry said the missile program is part of ‘‘domestic policy of the country, deterrent and at service of regional peace and security.’’
