Iran’s top security official has said the Strait of Hormuz will remain shut until the US meets six demands, including compensation for the war.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said on Saturday that the US must end all of its military interventions across the region before the strait can reopen fully to traffic.
He also demanded that all US forces pull back from around Iran, that Washington should compensate Tehran for “the two wars of aggression”, and that it should lift its sanctions.
Zolghadr reiterated the demand for the US to release frozen assets held overseas, and he told the administration to relent on its threats and insults against Iran.
“Until America corrects its behaviour, the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened,” he said, according to Iranian news agencies.
Earlier today, Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi, the spokesperson for Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), told allies and reporters in Bandar Abbas that the strait had evolved from a trade route into a “tool of power and war”.
Iran has exerted control over traffic in the international waterway since the US and Israel attacked in February. Effectively closing the strait with fast attack boats and missiles has pushed up oil prices, piling pressure onto US president Donald Trump to end the war.
Ship operators have also raised concerns about Iran’s plans to take fees or charges from vessels passing through the strait. As a natural waterway, ships have historically been free to pass through without payment, in accordance with international law.
Mohebbi added: “Whenever the United States accepts Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will certainly be reopened.”
A proposed deal between Iran and Oman to help end five months of war between Iran and the US could now give Tehran control over ships entering the Gulf through the strait, a senior Iranian source and two regional officials told Reuters on Wednesday, one of the biggest concessions yet to Iran.
US officials have repeatedly said they would never agree to Iran controlling access to the world's most important trade route for energy supplies, but it is not clear whether they have sought to change the parameters of the deal.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said Iran and Oman were “very close” to agreement on a new shipping route through the strait but that reopening it depended on other conditions, including US compensation to Iran.
In full, and in his words, here are the six terms Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr demanded from the US to reopen the strait:
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Never, and in no language, threaten Iran or insult the sanctities of this nation.
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Permanently end the war and aggression against Iran and Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq.
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Lift the naval blockade and withdraw its military forces (naval and air) from around Iran.
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Pay in full, without any reduction, the damages caused to Iran by the two wars of aggression and imposition.
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Lift the unjust and illegal sanctions against the Iranian nation.
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Unconditionally release the blocked and stolen assets of the Iranian people.