Iran Says US Must Accept New Order in Strait of Hormuz

Iranian Deputy Parliament Speaker Ali Nikzad has said the United States must accept arrangements established by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, arguing that the restrictions have created a new political and military order in the Persian Gulf. Addressing an open parliamentary session on Monday, Nikzad said the US and Israel had realized that military force could not reopen the strategic waterway and would have to accept the region’s new realities.

Nikzad said Iran had spent recent months using dialogue to explain what he called the “battlefield realities” to Washington, particularly that the Strait of Hormuz would not return to its pre-war conditions. Iran began restricting transit through the waterway in early March following the start of joint US-Israeli aggression, affecting a route through which around one-fifth of global oil supplies traditionally pass. Iran and the US later signed a memorandum of understanding in June under which Iran would manage the strait and gradually restore transit, while the US would lift sanctions and its blockade.

According to Nikzad, Iran reinstated restrictions after Washington violated the terms of the agreement by seeking to undermine Tehran’s management of the waterway. He said Iran recognizes no transit route through the Strait of Hormuz other than the corridor agreed with Oman, another littoral state of the waterway. He insisted that vessels would only be permitted to pass through the corridor designated by Iran’s armed forces and under conditions established by the Iranian government.