TEHRAN
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Sunday said they would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the United States accepts all of Tehran’s demands. “Our current strategy is to maintain this strait until the enemy accepts all our conditions,” said Guards spokesman Hossein Mohebi, as quoted by state TV, adding that “the strait is now actually a theater of war for us and not just a waterway.
Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi also said there had been no talks with the US, “only an exchange of messages through mediators”. Earlier, Iran set preconditions on Saturday for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, including compensation for war damages, complicating a potential deal to open the waterway essential to the world economy.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said discussions with Oman over transit and management of the strait were “approaching the final stages”, but added the reopening of Hormuz “is subject to other conditions and compensation for the violation” of the June agreement.
Security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr on Saturday laid out a list of demands for reopening the strait, including an end to the “war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq”.
He also demanded the lifting of a parallel US naval blockade of Iran, the end of sanctions, the release of frozen assets and compensation for wartime damage, according to remarks reported by Tasnim news agency. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, meanwhile, said Hormuz’s reopening had “nothing to do with the negotiations between Iran and Oman”, adding that the “enemy is forced to accept Iran’s conditions for the opening of the strait”.
