Tehran, Aug 15 (IANS) A senior Iranian diplomat said Saturday that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed and opened only under Iran’s command.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for legal and international affairs, made the remarks on X in response to a claim by US President Donald Trump, who said on Friday that he would soon declare the strait a US territory.
“The Strait of Hormuz can be captured neither with a tweet and aircraft carriers nor by issuing orders and a stump speech. Iran is neither afraid of threats nor intimidated by displays of power,” he said.
“This strait will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command,” he added, Xinhua News Agency reported.
“After we finish defeating Iran — which is being very badly defeated — pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said during a rally in New York.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said that Iran has made no decision yet on the resumption of negotiations with the United States, the state-run IRIB news agency reported Saturday.
In an interview, Araghchi noted that messages are being exchanged between Iran and the United States through mediators, “but this does not mean negotiations at all.”
The peace memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the two sides in June has announced the war’s end, he noted, stressing that the United States has “violated” the MoU and clashes started again.
Negotiations are underway between Iran and Oman to designate a new route for the safe passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, he said. “And we are currently designing a temporary route, which will turn into a permanent one in the next stages.”
“We may reach a conclusion soon,” he added. However, he said that the reopening of the strait hinges on the fulfilment of other conditions, “to which the United States must be committed.”
On June 18, Iran and the United States signed the MoU on ending the war in the region on all fronts, including Lebanon.
Under the MoU, the two countries were scheduled to hold negotiations within a period of 60 days, which will end on Monday, to reach a final agreement, but the talks’ fate has been hanging in the balance following the escalation between the two countries during the previous month.
–IANS
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