TEHRAN – A U.S. spy drone, which was recently shot down by Iran, had taken off from a military base in the United Arab Emirates, according to Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash.

Gargash made the remarks in a recent interview with Italian newspaper la Repubblica during his visit to Rome, Press TV reported.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) shot down on June 20 an intruding Global Hawk surveillance drone, which had violated Iranian airspace on a spying mission despite repeated warnings.

Iran has released the GPS coordinates of the doomed drone, showing that the drone was flying over Iranian territorial waters off the coast of the country’s southern Hormozgan Province.

However, the United States claims the drone was flying over international waters when it was targeted.

“We’ll take this new aggression to #UN & show that the US is lying about international waters,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.

Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the aerospace unit of the IRGC, said the drone had received warnings for four times before being shot down.

“Those who guided the drone received the warnings but did not care. Given that the drone breached Iran’s airspace, the aerospace unit of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps shot it down,” Hajizadeh said.

The UAE has also recently admitted that there was no “clear, scientific and convincing” evidence to assign blame for a recent tanker attacks off its coast in the Sea of Oman, for which the United States and Saudi Arabia blamed Iran.

“Honestly we can’t point the blame at any country because we don’t have evidence,” UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said on Wednesday.

“If there is a country that has the evidence, then I’m convinced that the international community will listen to it. But we need to make sure the evidence is clear and precise and scientific and convincing for the international community,” he added.

MH/PA