Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has said the Strait of Hormuz remains under Iran’s “full control” and was open for non-military vessels, but military ones would get a “forceful response,” two semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported.
The threat came after Washington said it would enforce a blockade on the Iranian ports as of 1400GMT on Monday.
Tensions have simmered despite a ceasefire after a marathon US-Iran ceasefire talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement, setting the stage for a showdown.
Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who led Iran’s side in the talks, addressed Trump in a statement on his return to Iran: “If you fight, we will fight.”
The war, which is entering its seventh week, has killed thousands of people and shaken global markets.
Iran threatened ports in the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman after the US announced a blockade on Iran’s ports and coastline.
The security of ports in the Gulf and the Sea of Oman is “either for everyone or for no one,” the IRGC said in a statement carried by the state broadcaster IRIB.
The Iranian armed forces “consider the defence of the country’s legal rights a natural and lawful duty, and therefore the exercise of sovereignty over Iran’s territorial waters is a natural right of the Iranian nation,” it stated.
“Enemy-affiliated vessels” will be denied passage through the Strait of Hormuz, while other ships may transit subject to regulations set by Tehran, the statement noted.
Citing “continuing enemy threats,” the IRGC said Iran “will firmly implement a permanent mechanism for controlling the Strait of Hormuz” even after the war.
“The restrictions imposed by the criminal United States on maritime movement in international waters are illegal and amount to piracy,” it added.
