A US vessel has been intercepted by speedboats belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in the Persian Gulf, the Iranian Tasnim News reported on Thursday.
A spokesman for the US Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, Commander Timothy Hawkins, said he was unaware of any unsafe interaction with Iran in the last two days, according to AP.
A video filmed from one of the speedboats was shown on Iranian TV, showing a vessel flying the US flag, with personnel on board, with what appears to be a speedboat chasing it. A voice can be heard saying in Farsi, "Keep chasing them." It is not known when the encounter took place, the AP report said.
In May, the US Coast Guard fired warning shots at a number of fast-approaching IRGC speedboats, when two reached dangerously close to US Navy vessels.
In 2015, in exchange for lifting economic sanctions in the country, Iran drastically limited its enrichment of uranium, as part of the Iran nuclear deal. In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal.
Talks in Vienna on renewing the Iran deal and bringing the US back into it have been stalled since June, with no new date set to resume. Trump's withdrawal and subsequent stalling of the talks have increased tensions in the region.