The Iranian navy announced plans for a long-term naval operation in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, which would bring Tehran’s fleet closer to American shores than ever before.

Deputy Chief of Navy Force of the Iranian Army Adm Touraj Hasnai Moqaddam said the Iranian fleet would begin operations in international waters in the Atlantic within the coming months.

“The Atlantic Ocean is a long route, and it is likely that this Iranian mission would take five months to complete,” he said during an interview with state-run media outlet INRA News. The Iranian flotilla is expected to make a port call in Venezuela, a longtime ally, and other nations in the Americas during the five-month operation, the Iranian navy chief added.

While Iran has threatened to move its warships into the waters of the Atlantic on several occasions, this week’s announcement coincides with the christening of the Sahand-class destroyer, Tehran’s most advanced warship to date. Joining the Iranian fleet in December, the Sahand-class warship boats several next-generation communications and radar-jamming technologies.

It replaced the Jamaran-class destroyer, which had been a key deep-water vessel in Tehran’s fleet.

Amid tensions over the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, Iranian warships flooded the Strait of Hormuz last July, dramatizing the regime’s ability to choke off the strategic Persian Gulf waterway through which much of the world’s oil supplies flow.

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