Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec 13 / Trend D.Khatinoglu/
The United States' drone has violated Iranian airspace, but they want to return the drone instead of apologizing, Mehr News Agency reported quoting Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi as saying.
"They abused our territory and we defended Iran's national interests strongly," he said. "Iran has included the captured U.S. drone into its asset list."
Tehran initially said it shot down the drone but later claimed the Iranian military managed to hack into the plane's flight controls.
On Monday Barack Obama acknowledged a US drone was in Iranian hands for the first time and said the United States has asked Tehran to return the sophisticated spycraft. It was the first open confirmation by the Obama administration that Iran was in possession of the drone, which Tehran says it brought down as the plane was flying over the country's territory.
According to AFP, The bat-winged RQ-170 Sentinel, designed to evade radar for surveillance flights, was on a CIA mission when it went missing, US officials, speaking anonymously, have said previously.
US officials have expressed skepticism that Iran has the technological capacity to have brought the plane down through hacking and that it was more likely the drone suffered a malfunction.