US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the United States has no appetite to go to war with Iran, after Tehran shot down a US military surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on Thursday shot down an intruding American spy drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.
In a statement, the IRGC said the US-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down by its Air Force near the Kouh-e Mobarak region — which sits in the central district of Jask County — after the aircraft violated Iranian airspace.
According to the statement, the Global Hawk had flown from one of the American bases in the southern parts of the Persian Gulf region at 00:14 a.m. local time, with its identification transponders off in breach of all international aviation rules.
It also went on to say that the drone had stealthily continued on the route from the Strait of Hormuz towards Iran’s port city of Chabahar.
Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, told reporters on Thursday that 20 lawmakers will receive a briefing to learn more about the incident, Reuters reported.
"I think it's a dangerous situation," Pelosi said. "We have to be strong and strategic about how we protect our interests. We also cannot be reckless in what we do, so it will be interesting to see what they have to say.
"I don't think the president wants to go to war. There's no appetite for going to war in our country,” she added.
Pelosi said tensions were high in the Middle East region and worried that "a miscalculation on either side could provoke something very bad."