US military official: Iran naval forces halt 'provocations'

MANAMA, Bahrain – A U.S. military official says Iranian naval forces appear to have deliberately halted their provocations of U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf in recent months.

Navy Cmdr. William Urban, spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said there have been no "unsafe and unprofessional" actions by Iranian naval forces in the Gulf since August 2017.

Prior to that, Iranian vessels had periodically made high-speed approaches to U.S. ships that were considered dangerous provocations.

Urban declined to speculate on the reason for the change.

Urban said on Thursday that "it seems like they've absolutely made a conscious decision to give us more space."

He added that it's "definitely a change in their behavior."

Urban spoke during U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' stopover in Bahrain on his way back from Afghanistan.