Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced on Tuesday that its forces shot down a US MQ-9 drone and fired at an F-35 fighter jet and another drone after violating its airspace, after Washington reported attacks on positions in southern Iran.

“The air defense units of the Revolutionary Guard, in defense of the territorial space of our country and after precise intelligence monitoring, identified and shot down an MQ-9 drone,” said the public relations department of the elite Iranian military body in a statement collected by the Tasnim agency.

According to the document, in addition to the MQ-9 drone, an RQ-4 drone and the F-35 fighter violated Iranian airspace in the Persian Gulf region and fled after Guard forces fired on them.

The Revolutionary Guard warned against any violation of the ceasefire by the US and considered its right to a reciprocal response “legitimate and definitive.”

Hours earlier, the Central Command of the US Armed Forces (Centcom) had reported attacks “in self-defense” in southern Iran, directed against missile launch sites and Iranian vessels, on which the Iranian authorities have not yet commented.

The events have occurred just as the United States and Iran have intensified their contacts in recent days and are finalizing the details of an agreement that would allow the war to end.

The Iranian chief negotiator, Mohamad Baqer Qalibaf, and the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abás Araqchí, are in Qatar to discuss this agreement which, according to leaks to the press, would include the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the lifting of sanctions on Iran, but would leave the nuclear dossier for a later phase.