TEHRAN – The commander of the Iranian Navy said on Tuesday that Iranian naval forces have so far escorted 1600 Iranian vessels in the Gulf of Aden. 

 

“So far, we have escorted 1600 vessels, and if we do not escort and protect these vessels, imports and exports will decrease and we will experience an economic crisis,” Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari stated. 

 

“Today, we take pride in the fact that we have built a destroyer and take our destroyer to other countries and (tell) them that we have this technology,” he said, referring to the Jamaran destroyer.  

 

Iran’s first domestically manufactured destroyer, the Jamaran, was launched in February 2010. 

 

The warship can carry helicopters and is equipped with torpedoes and electronic radar. It is 94 meters long and weighs over 1,500 tons.

 

The destroyer is capable of engaging in surface, air, and undersea warfare. 

 

In September 2011, Sayyari announced that the second domestically manufactured destroyer would join the country’s naval fleet in the near future. 

 

Rear Admiral Sayyari said at the time that the Jamaran II (Velayat) was highly advanced and differed greatly from the Jamaran. 

 

In an interview with the Persian service of the Fars News Agency published on June 19, the deputy commander of the Iranian Navy, Rear Admiral Abbas Zamini, said that about 70 percent of the project to build the Velayat destroyer had been completed and expressed hope that the destroyer would be launched by the end of the current Iranian calendar year, March 20, 2013.   

 

Zamini also announced at the time that Iran planned to build 10 new domestically designed destroyers in addition to the Jamaran and Velayat destroyers. 

 

EP/PA