Iran threatened on Tuesday, September 29, to attack infrastructure around the Middle East as it awaited a formal U.S. response to its plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The waterway has been blocked to commercial shipping since the war began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.
Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is also the country’s parliament speaker, issued the threat in a video released by state TV. “In a region where we cannot sell oil, no one else will sell oil either; or if our security is not guaranteed, no infrastructure will remain safe,” he said.
The U.S. has imposed a counter-blockade on Iranian ports to prevent Tehran from exporting oil. Washington has relied on economic pressure rather than further military action in recent weeks, while fighting has subsided and Tehran has continued targeting ships in the strait.
Blockade and counter-blockade
Before the conflict, the Strait of Hormuz carried a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas. Iran has kept commercial shipping from passing through the waterway since the war began. The U.S. and Iran both claim control over whether the strait is open: Washington says oil is moving through it, while Tehran says it’s closed.
On Tuesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, described as the ideological arm of the country’s military, disputed the U.S. account. “The US claim that it remains open is false,” it said. Spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi said, “Sneaking a few hundred barrels of oil through under the cover of darkness — with transponders turned off and at great cost — does not constitute the strait being open.”
Mohebbi said a truly open waterway would see “at least 125 vessels” pass daily, carrying “a minimum of 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products.” He added: “Any vessel attempting to pass through sustains damage — either we strike it, or it hits a mine.”
Terms of a possible agreement
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Monday that Qatari intermediaries had presented proposals. “We discussed them; they’re set to raise the matter with the American side once more, after which the final US response will be conveyed to us,” he said. Araghchi was in New York for the U.N. General Assembly and said the Qataris hoped the response would arrive by the following day.
“The current focus is solely on the Strait of Hormuz, and the reopening of the strait is contingent upon the fulfilment of certain conditions that we’ve communicated to the other side,” Araghchi said.
Discussions took place in New York last week between Araghchi and U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said Tuesday there had been “several meetings and messages” exchanged, including in New York and earlier. “Current efforts are focused on building common ground between the parties,” he said.
Iran has demanded a seven-day ceasefire across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, as a precondition for ending its blockade. It is also seeking the unfreezing of assets abroad, the lifting of sanctions on its oil sector and an end to the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports. Lebanon is where Iran’s ally Hezbollah is regularly bombed by Israel, Arab News reported.
Al Ansari said Iranian authorities “need to take a decision to distance our countries from this war and to take a very clear position of non-aggression toward their neighbors.” Tehran’s control of Hormuz has dealt a severe blow to Gulf states, which have also come under Iranian fire, Arab News reported.