TEHRAN, December 11 (Itar-Tass) — Iran does not intend to return to the US a drone, downed in the Iranian air space, said on Sunday deputy head of the commander of Islamic Revolutionary Guards, General Hossein Salami, speaking over local television.

“Nobody will ever welcome an alien reconnaissance aircraft on their territory and no one will return it. Such an incident can be assessed by any country as a hostile act, creating a threat to national security,” the general emphasized. According to Salami, Iranian military specialists will thoroughly study a trophy, turned to be in their hands.

However, the importance of the fact that the drone was downed, lies not in an idea that Iran hopes to get an access to new technologies. Apart from the above, the Islamic Republic has achieved impressive successes in developing similar aircraft.

In the general’s opinion, more important is the fact that Iran’s enemies should draw a conclusion concerning its military potential and understand that “collection of reconnaissance information for them will not be an easy and free-going thing”.

On December 4, Iranian sources reported that Iranian air defense forces downed an American drone of the RQ-170 type, which violated the Iranian air space from the eastern direction and is now at the disposal of the Iranian military with insignificant damages.

In turn, a spokesman of the US administration said on December 5 that there is no information that Iranians downed an American drone. According to data of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, it could be a drone, that was performing a mission over the Afghan territory, but got lost.

However, reports appeared later that the drone was engaged in collecting intelligence information on Iran.