South Korea Cheonghae Unit whose operational boundary has been expanded to include the Strait of Hormuz will not intervene in probable military clashes between the US and Iran, he informed, according to KBS World.

He also clarified terminology saying it’s not a dispatch to the Strait of Hormuz but an expanded operating area.

He stressed the importance of preemptive measures to prevent any factors that may harm South Korean interests in the region.

Earlier this week, South Korean foreign ministry official said South Korea has briefed Iran, on the decision about dispatching troops to Strait of Hormuz, in advance over the weekend and Seoul will work closely with Tehran to take care of mutual relations.

Iran has expressed concern about South Korea’s decision to send troops to the Strait of Hormuz, the official was quoted as saying by Yonhap.

Seoul announced on Tuesday that it will dispatch troops in the form of having its Cheonghae anti-piracy unit operating in the Gulf of Aden take on additional missions to protect the key strategic waterway off Iran. The decision came after the United States called on allies to join its campaign to secure the waterway. But South Korea said the Cheonghae unit will conduct missions independently without joining the US-led coalition.

“Iran’s position is that it is basically opposed to foreign troops or ships coming to the region. They initially expressed concern according to that,” the ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Seoul will work closely with Tehran to take care of relations between the two countries, the official said.

“The Iranian side has responded the same way about that,” the official said.

Asked about possible negative effects on bilateral relations with Tehran, the official said the government puts national interest and the safety of South Korean citizens first when making such a decision.

“We have our own national interest. We must protect our people and guarantee the safety of our vessels. Iran has its own position and we have made ours in consideration of our national interest,” he said.

This is while last Monday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Abbas Mousavi described South Korea’s measure as unacceptable. “The Korean government has informed us that it wants to dispatch a part of its fleet in Aden to the region (Persian Gulf) for patrolling mission, but outside the US coalition, and we have told them that the decision is unacceptable.”

He underlined that such a decision if implemented, will be in line with the US adventurism policy and does not fit the age-old and friendly relations between Tehran and Seoul.

Iran has repeatedly announced that the presence of foreign forces in the region will lead to increased insecurity and instability. Tehran has proposed the HOPE initiative which aims to ensure regional security through boosting cooperation among regional states.

In an interview with NPR, Pompeo defended the US President’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, claiming that it is “absolutely working,” on thier missile program.

“This is a regime that has been working to develop its nuclear program for years and years and years. And the nuclear deal guaranteed them a pathway to having a nuclear program,” Pompeo claimed in reference to the international agreement signed by Iran, the US, the United Kingdom, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the European Union in 2015.

“It was a certainty. It might have been delayed for a month or a year or five or 10 years, but it guaranteed them that pathway. This administration has pulled the Band-Aid off,” he added.

He declined, however, to detail specifics of the administration’s policy for preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear technology, saying only, “We’ll stop them.”

He said that the US administration has built a coalition that’s working to put pressure on Iran to end its missile program, their processing of uranium and the reprocessing of plutonium.

He also claimed that the US has also raised the cost for Iran’s use of force through proxy groups in the Middle East.

Stoltenberg briefed the press after an urgent meeting of the North Atlantic Council at Ambassadorial level in Brussels following the assassination of Lt. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi Muhandis, a senior member of Iraq’s Shia Popular Mobilization Forces, in Baghdad on Friday.

Stoltenberg said that NATO allies were concerned about activities in the region but emphasized that the attack was a “US decision” and suspended the ongoing training mission in Iraq.

He said the US provided their rationale at an emergency meeting in Brussels, Euronews reported.

In May, the US sent its aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East citing an unspecified Iranian “threat” to US interests in the region. Since then, the Persian Gulf has seen a string of dangerous incidents, including tanker sabotage attacks, ship seizures, and drone shootdowns.

Moscow is concerned over increasing tensions in the Persian Gulf, and it sees West attempts to stoke these tensions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

“We see some of our Western colleagues artificially trying to inflame the situation. And Russia and Iran oppose such attempts with a proposal to establish equal, mutually beneficial cooperation in this important region,” Lavrov said at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif.

The statement comes after the Pentagon said on Sunday that the US military conducted a spate of strikes targeting five Kata’ib Hezbollah facilities in Syria and Iraq.

Earlier this year, Lavrov stated that Russia calls for a solution to tensions in the Persian Gulf through dialogue and without unfounded accusations.

“Our contribution is the revised Russian concept of collective security in the region presented this summer”, Lavrov said in an address to the UN General Assembly.

In late July, the Russia Foreign Ministry unveiled, amid heightened US-Iran tensions, an updated version of an initiative called Collective Security Concept for the Persian Gulf Region, which proposed the “renouncement of permanent deployment of troops of extra-regional states” in the region.

The concept further promotes multilateralism as the core of a new security system in the region, with Moscow suggesting that a security organization be created that would include Russia, the United States, China, India, the European Union, and other interested parties.

Lavrov, for his part, noted that Moscow hopes that the countries of the Middle East will take a closer look at Russia’s plan to ensure security in the Gulf region in the wake of a drone attack on critical Saudi oil infrastructure late last week.

On 14 September, a drone attack on Saudi Aramco’s oil processing facilities forced the Saudi national oil and gas giant to shut them down, halving the country’s oil production. Although responsibility for the attack was claimed by Houthi rebels, the US and Saudi Arabia pointed the finger at Iran, which refuted all the accusations.