TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – US President Donald Trump mistakenly referred to Iran as the "Islamic Republic of Japan" while speaking about recent tensions in the Middle East during the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday.
As reported by USA Today, Trump made the verbal slip while standing alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, recounting what he described as an Iranian missile barrage targeting the USS Abraham Lincoln.
"We have an aircraft carrier which is one of the most beautiful in the world, it's one of the biggest, the (USS) Abraham Lincoln," Trump said. "And a few months ago, we had 111 missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan."
Trump went on to claim that the missiles were fired at the aircraft carrier over the course of about an hour and that all of them were successfully intercepted.
The remark immediately drew attention because Japan is one of the United States' closest allies and has no connection to the ongoing conflict involving Iran. Iran's official name is the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The comments came as Trump discussed US military capabilities and warned that Washington was prepared to launch additional strikes against Iran, declaring that the interim memorandum of understanding between the two countries was effectively over.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, has been deployed to the Middle East during periods of heightened tensions with Iran and has played a key role in recent US military operations in the region.
According to Türkiye Today, Trump's remarks referred to earlier incidents involving the carrier. In February, the U.S. military shot down a drone that approached the USS Abraham Lincoln while it was operating in the Arabian Sea near Iran. A month later, Iran claimed it had struck the carrier with ballistic missiles, but the US Central Command denied the claim, saying the ship was never hit and that the missiles did not come close to their target.
The verbal slip occurred against the backdrop of escalating hostilities between Washington and Tehran, with both countries exchanging military strikes and increasingly confrontational rhetoric in recent days.
The United States and Japan have maintained a formal military alliance for nearly 75 years under a mutual defense treaty signed in 1952. Around 60,000 US troops remain stationed in Japan, making the country one of Washington's closest security partners in the Indo-Pacific region.
While the White House did not immediately comment on Trump's wording, the incident quickly attracted attention as another high-profile verbal gaffe during an international summit.
Read: Trump Declares Iran Ceasefire 'Over' as US Launches Fresh Strikes
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