Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi, confirmed the incident on Saturday night and stressed that it is being investigated by Iran’s border guard and other related authorities.
“This subject is currently under investigation… and after the results become apparent, this bitter incident will be seriously followed up,” he said.
Earlier, the Iranian Interior Ministry’s Director General for border affairs Majid Aqa-Babaei announced that the Saudi coastguard had killed an Iranian fisherman in the waters south of Iran.
“Accordingly and without establishing whether the Iranian boats had crossed Saudi borders, the coastguard of this country opened fire on the Iranian boats and an Iranian fisherman was killed due to a bullet hitting him in the waist,” he added.
Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia worsened after a deadly human crush occurred during Hajj rituals in Mina, near Mecca in September 2015.
Islamic Republic officials blamed the incompetence of Saudi officials for the incident, which, according to Iran, killed 4,700 people, including 465 Iranian nationals.
Mutual ties deteriorated further when Riyadh executed prominent Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in January 2016. Saudi Arabia unilaterally severed its diplomatic ties with Iran after protests in front of its diplomatic premises in the cities of Tehran and Mashhad against Nimr’s execution.