Dubai: The Iranian army on Sunday warned that countries complying with US sanctions against the Islamic Republic would “face difficulties” crossing the Strait of Hormuz.
Army official Mohammad Akraminia told Iran’s official IRNA news agency, “Countries that comply with the United States by imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran will certainly face difficulties crossing the strait.”
Iran has been restricting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway key to the global flow of oil, with the US imposing a blockade of Iranian ports.
Akraminia said the United States attempted to challenge Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz by deploying destroyers and other naval vessels, but was met with what he described as firm resistance from Iranian armed forces.
The Iranian army official also claimed that Iran has established a new legal and security framework that requires all vessels passing through the strait to coordinate with Iranian authorities.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Sunday told Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi in a phone call that using the Strait of Hormuz as a “pressure card” will only deepen the Middle East crisis, the Qatari foreign ministry said Sunday.
PM Sheikh “stressed that freedom of navigation is a firmly established principle that is not open to compromise, and that closing the Strait of Hormuz or using it as a pressure card only serves to deepen the crisis”, the ministry said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the US and Bahrain have reportedly drafted a UN resolution calling on Iran to halt restrictions on the shipping waterway, which has been a major flashpoint since the start of the war on February 28. Iran has allowed only a trickle of ships to pass through the waterway, a route that in peacetime accounts for a fifth of the world’s oil and gas flows, along with other vital commodities.
