The American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln sailed through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday without incident, marking its second such voyage through the strategic waterway in recent weeks.
Officials said USS Abraham Lincoln was accompanied by a US cruiser and a destroyer. Although all the fighter jets remained grounded on the carrier as it made way through the waterway, US navy helicopters flew over the carrier as it sailed through the narrowest part of the strait.
US navy said there were no incidents with the Iranian navy as the carrier passed through the strait. The navy, however, did state that the carrier was shadowed by Iranian patrol boats during its journey, which ended a month-long mission in the Persian Gulf.
The Strait of Hormuz is a strategic waterway located at the mouth of the Persian Gulf linking the oil-producing countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with the Indian Ocean. About 40 percent of the world's tanker-borne oil passes through the waterway, which is jointly controlled by Iran and Oman.
USS Abraham Lincoln had entered the Gulf last month through the Strait of Hormuz, accompanied by a French warship and UK naval vessels. The move followed an Iranian threat to close down the strait in response to recent sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic by the US and its allies over Teheran's continued refusal to address international concerns on its disputed nuclear program.
The West hopes that the new sanctions will persuade Iran to rejoin the stalled negotiations with the six world powers over its disputed nuclear program. Although Iran maintains its uranium enrichment work is aimed at producing fuel for a medical-purpose reactor, the West suspects Teheran's claims are just a cover-up for producing weapon-grade uranium. The US has also warned Iran that it will not tolerate any disruption to the oil traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has already survived four sets of sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council following refusal to halt its uranium enrichment, including the one imposed in June 2010. Since then, the six world powers have held two rounds of talks with Iran, once in Geneva in December 2010 and again in Istanbul in January 2011. Both negotiations failed to reach any agreement on the issue.
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