AMN / WEB DESK
The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the US fulfills its commitments, despite an understand with Oman on passage through the waterway having been reached, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said.
“Iran has reached an understanding with Oman regarding arrangements for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, but this understanding will not automatically enter the implementation phase,” Tasnim news agency reporting Sunday, quoting Gharibabadi.
He said that commitments from the US should be fulfilled and underscored that Iran was in no hurry to reopen the strait and that it would continue its defensive measures.
“Implementation of this understanding requires commitments to be fulfilled by the other side, especially the United States. Whenever these commitments are implemented, Iran will also take its measures,” Gharibabadi said.
“These measures are not a new issue. If Washington is interested in returning to the path of diplomacy, it must accept responsibility for its past actions,” he added.
Gharibabadi stressed that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, saying, “If a vessel passes through this route, it will do so with the coordination and authorization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Touching on the role of mediators, he said that “the efforts of Qatar and Pakistan were aimed at examining whether there is a possibility of returning to the implementation of the commitments under the Islamabad understanding.”
After six months of war, Iran’s leadership has coalesced around a hard core of military generals and clerics long entrenched in the ruling theocracy. They are ready for a potentially long confrontation with the US and determined to prevent any unrest at home.
It’s a far cry from US President Donald Trump’s initial hopes of toppling the Islamic Republic and his subsequent claims that “regime change” had brought more compromising officials to the fore.
Iran’s new leaders evince little faith in any agreement with Trump — after coming under attack twice while holding talks — and they may be bracing for another assault once the US replenishes its supplies of interceptors. They have also threatened to escalate the war as a continuing American blockade and
Trump’s plans for new sanctions threaten to suffocate Iran’s already worsening economy.
“If (Trump) wants to do something, we will retaliate in a seismic manner,” the new secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, said last weekend. In a post on X, he said that “if the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will be exported” from the Arabian Gulf.