Iran supreme leader issues defiant statement on strait of Hormuz | Iran

Iran’s supreme leader broke his recent silence with a defiant statement hailing Iran’s control over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and promising to protect the country’s nuclear and missile programs.

“Today, a new page opens for the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, two months after the largest military deployment and aggression in the region by the world’s tyrants and the shameful defeat of the plans of the United States,” Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement read by a state television presenter.

In the statement, it was stated that Tehran will secure the Gulf region and, in its own words, eliminate “the enemy’s abuse of the waterway”, that “the new management of the Bosphorus will bring comfort and progress for the benefit of all the people of the region, and the economic abundance will bring joy to the hearts of the people.”

Iran has sought to pay for being attacked by exercising control over the strait, the narrow waterway through which about one-fifth of global oil passes.

Khamenei also promised that as the national capital of Iran, he will preserve its modern technological capabilities, from nano to bio, nuclear and missile, and protect it as well as its sea, land and air borders.

No recordings or images have been released since Khamenei was appointed as religious leader in early March. Reports suggest that he was seriously injured in the February 28 bombing that killed his 86-year-old father and his predecessor. It was stated that the injured person was being treated at the hospital.

Its new statement suggests that Iran is determined to implement a new fee regime in the strait, which it will present as an overdue assertion of regional sovereignty to the benefit of the entire region.

Since April 13, the United States has implemented a counter-blockade designed to prevent oil tankers from entering and exiting Iranian ports, ultimately taking over Iran’s oil industry.

There is little sign that either blockade will be lifted, with Pakistan-brokered talks deadlocked, pushing the oil price above $120 a barrel. Ship traffic levels remain extremely low; Sometimes it drops to three ships a day, compared to 120-140 ships under normal conditions.

“Strangers who maliciously envy him [the strait] “Those who come from thousands of kilometers away have no place there except at the bottom of its waters,” Khamenei said in his statement.

The strait closure comes as oil and gasoline prices soar ahead of crucial midterm elections, putting pressure on Gulf allies who use the waterway to export oil and gas.

Trump’s admission on Wednesday that he did not know a quick way out of the impasse pushed oil prices close to $125 a barrel; that was as high as it was in the first weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Axios news site reported that the US military is still offering Trump options to continue the attacks.

Major General Muhsin Reza, the religious leader’s military advisor, wrote on his

The world sees the strait as an international waterway open to everyone without paying, and Gulf Arab countries, especially the United Arab Emirates, have condemned Iran’s control over the strait, likening it to piracy.

Iran has suggested that talks with the United States on its nuclear program be suspended and that both sides agree to allow ships to continue passing through the strait. In Iran, the foreign ministry called on the parliament to accept that the plans prepared by Iran together with Oman do not require new Iranian legislation. It also calls for Iran to avoid terms such as toll and instead exercise its pre-existing right to charge for services provided.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper held talks regarding the strait in Washington on Wednesday. According to the Wall Street Journal, an email sent by the State Department to embassies suggested that the United States was trying to get involved in largely European-led plans for surveillance of the strait once the conflict ends.

The United States is proposing to coordinate diplomacy and communications among countries using the strait by reviving and expanding the 12-nation International Maritime Security Structure, a pre-existing naval operation established in the wake of threats to shipping by the Iranian navy.