• The statue would be intended as a tourist attraction, the commander of Iran's Navy said.
• In January, 10 U.S. sailors were released a day after accidentally drifting into Iranian waters.
In early January, Iran apprehended 10 U.S. Navy sailors who entered the country's territorial waters by mistake.
Now, in a move unlikely to calm relations between the two countries, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy says it plans to build a monument commemorating the sailors' capture.
"There are very many photographs of the major incident of arresting US Marines in the Persian Gulf in the media and we intend to build a symbol out of them inside one of our naval monuments," the commander of Iran's Navy, Ali Fadavi, told Iran's Defense Press, in comments translated to English by The Telegraph last Friday.
Video released by Iran after the capture featured U.S. sailors being held at gunpoint and kneeling with their hands placed on their heads. One scene replayed on Iranian media featured a sailor crying during interrogations.
Fadavi said the statue would be intended as a tourist attraction on the island of Kharg, near the location where the two U.S. Navy boats were captured.
In a story published by Iran's PressTV at the time of the incident, Fadavi acknowledged the boats had strayed into Iranian water because of technical problems with their navigation system. The sailors were released less than a day later in what was hailed as a win for diplomacy between the two countries.
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