The Strait of Hormuz, now the most critical issue at stake in the war in the Middle East, will remain closed as long as Washington does not accept “all” of the conditions set by Tehran, the Revolutionary Guards insisted over the weekend, seemingly dashing any hopes for a swift resolution to the conflict.
Downplaying the Iranian demands, U.S. President Donald Trump stated during an interview with the news website Axios yesterday that the U.S. remains “discreet” and are limiting themselves to “watching Iran with its galloping inflation” and its economy in “very bad shape,” to the extent that, according to him, there is a risk that it will be unable to pay the salaries of its military personnel.
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In July, the U.S. reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports in the Gulf, which, according to the U.S. president, has exacerbated the economic crisis in Iran.
“It will work. It always works,” said Trump, who has made numerous contradictory statements about the war. “It’s like a game of chess,” he added.
At the heart of the conflict now lies the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has closed, and the powerful Revolutionary Guards have emphasized that they consider it “a theater of war and not just a maritime route.”
“Our current strategy is to keep this strait closed until the enemy accepts all of our terms,” they said.
This goes far beyond even the issues of Iran’s nuclear program and missiles, which were cited —among other things—when launching the U.S.-Israeli attack in late February, reopening this vital corridor for international hydrocarbon trade is Donald Trump’s number one priority. In recent days, he has repeatedly stated that the supposed negotiations on this matter were going very well and that the passage would reopen immediately.
However, the conditions set by Tehran on Saturday are likely to lead to a new standoff: the U.S. must “put a definitive end to the war and aggression” against Iran and its allies, including those in Yemen and Iraq, lift the blockade of Iranian ports, lift economic sanctions, and unfreeze Iranian assets “unconditionally.”
Many of these provisions, however, were already included in the memorandum of understanding signed by the presidents of the two countries in mid-June, which was supposed to pave the way for broader negotiations, while allowing the strait to open for a few days and oil prices to fall, before the process derailed.
While disagreements between the U.S. and Israel have come to light in the context of the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted yesterday on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, saying that “with or without an agreement,” the Islamic Republic, a sworn enemy of the Jewish state, “will not acquire nuclear weapons.”
“We’re half-negotiating” Denying once again that negotiations are underway with Washington—as the U.S. president has repeatedly claimed— the head of Iranian diplomacy spoke yesterday of an “exchange of messages through intermediaries.”
“I wouldn’t call it a negotiation. I would call it an exchange of messages,” Abbas Araghchi noted. He ruled out any possibility of continuing the talks as long as “U.S. violations” of the agreement in principle—the so-called Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding—do not cease.
Iran emphasizes that it is engaging in dialogue only with Oman, the sultanate on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz, to determine the future shipping routes for vessels crossing the strait. These talks are in their “final phase,” Mr. Araghchi reiterated.
Meanwhile, in Yemen, the Houthi rebels, with Iran’s support, claimed responsibility for new airstrikes that killed at least 11 people, including civilians and soldiers, as the 2022 ceasefire collapsed last month.
The Houthis also announced that they had targeted an oil refinery in neighboring Saudi Arabia, an ally of the Yemeni government. The facilities of the oil giant Aramco, located in Jazan, in southwestern Saudi Arabia, were struck by a “precision strike” using an unmanned aerial vehicle, according to their military spokesman Yahya Sari. The attack, the spokesman said, was carried out in response to Saudi incursions into northwestern Yemen.
At the same time, the army of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, reported that seven people, both military personnel and civilians, were killed and another 30 were wounded in an attack by the Shiite armed movement Ansar Allah—also known by the surname of its leaders, the Houthis—which is aligned with Iran—against the city of Mocha, home to a port on the Red Sea, targeting military and civilian sites.
Source: CNA
