TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian military experts are in the final stages of extracting data from a sophisticated U.S. drone brought down by the Iranian armed forces, a lawmaker said Monday.
In Washington, President Obama said the U.S. has asked Iran to return the drone.
Parviz Sorouri, a key member of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, told state television that the extracted information will be used to sue the United States over the “invasion” by the unmanned aircraft. He said Iran will “soon” start to reproduce the drone after a process of reverse engineering.
Sorouri also said the country’s armed forces will soon conduct an exercise on closing the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between the Gulf of Oman and the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The oil shipped through the strait accounts for about 17 percent of oil traded worldwide and roughly a third of all oil traded by sea.
