FM: Iranian Nation Not to Bow to Arrogant Powers' Pressures

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi underlined Tehran's resolve and determination to continue the path of progress, and said that the Iranian nation will not succumb to the pressures exerted by the arrogant powers against the country.
"Despite its longtime acquaintance with the arrogant powers' enmities, the brave Iranian nation will not give up its true cause and demands," Salehi said in a statement issued on the 23rd anniversary of the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by a US warship in the Persian Gulf in 1988.

He further said imposition of new sanctions by the US against the state-run Iran Air Company which coincides with the anniversary of the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane shows that the United States has continued hostilities towards the Iranian nation during the last three decades.

At the height of the Iraqi imposed war on Iran, the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf blew up Iranian airliner 655, killing all 290 citizens on board, including nearly 70 children.

Iranian Airbus A300 plane was making a routine flight from the country's Southern port city of Bandar Abbas to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes launched two surface-to-air missiles, downing Iran Air Flight 655.

The American officials later claimed that the USS Vincennes had mistaken the Iranian passenger plane for an F-14 fighter. The claim was later proved to be unfounded by more evidence.

Although Iran filed against the US in the United Nations and the International Civil Aviation Organization, both the UN and ICAO adopted a politicized attitude and declined to follow up the case legally, they only bothered to sympathize with the bereaved families of the victims.

Iranians mark July the 3rd each year by showering the site of the disaster with flowers.