Iran stepped up its rhetoric against the United States on Sunday, a day after announcing it had reasserted control of the Strait of Hormuz. President Donald Trump has confirmed that peace talks with Iran continue, but warned Tehran against making threats.
Mohammad Berger Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and chief negotiator, said while negotiations to end the war between the United States and Israel continued, the country was ready to restart the conflict and warned the United States against imposing a naval blockade of its ships in the strait.
“Just because we are negotiating does not mean we think the military is not ready,” Mohammad Berger Ghalibaf said in a televised address late Saturday, Iranian state media reported. “Rather, our military is as ready as our people are on the streets.”
Ghalibaf also reiterated Iran’s intention to restrict traffic in the strait, a key energy barrier.
“Others can pass through the Strait of Hormuz, but we cannot. If the US does not abandon the blockade, traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will definitely be restricted,” he said.
President Trump announced the blockade on April 12, complaining that Iran was not willing to reopen the strait, one of the conditions for agreeing to a fragile two-week ceasefire now in effect.
gunboat diplomacy
The British military’s British Maritime Trade Operations Center said on Saturday that two Iranian Revolutionary Guards gunboats opened fire on a tanker passing through the strait. It reported that the tanker and crew were safe, but did not identify the vessel or its destination.
Shipping sources told Reuters that at least two other ships reported being hit by shelling as they tried to pass through the waterway.
Confusion over the situation in the Straits has left ship operators at a loss.
Video footage from ship tracking company Kpler showed several tankers and cargo ships attempting to leave the waterway on Friday but being turned back.
Oil prices fell more than 10% on Friday to below $90 a barrel on hopes that energy supplies from the region would resume. Before the war, about one-fifth of the world’s crude oil supply passed through this strait. The closure of the sea lanes linking the Persian Gulf to global energy markets caused the largest oil supply disruption in history.
India has summoned Iran’s ambassador after an Indian-flagged vessel carrying crude oil was attacked in Mumbai as it crossed the strait, Reuters reported.
at a White House event on Saturday. President Trump did not respond to reporters’ questions about Iran, but said, “We’re having very good conversations.”
“I felt a little sorry for Iran,” he said, then added, referring to the Strait of Hormuz: “They wanted to close the strait again.”
“They can’t intimidate us,” Trump said.
nuclear rights
Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was quoted as saying that the United States cannot take away Iran’s rights to its nuclear program.
“President Trump has said that Iran cannot take advantage of its nuclear rights, but he has not explicitly stated what the crime is. Who on earth is going to take away a nation’s rights?” Reuters quoted Pezeshkian as saying through Iran Student News Agency.
In an interview with The Associated Press on the sidelines of a diplomatic forum in Turkey on Saturday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said his country would not hand over enriched uranium to the United States, rejecting President Trump’s claims.
“What I can tell you is that the concentrate will not be shipped to the United States,” Khatibzadeh said. “This is a non-starter. We are prepared to address any concerns we have, but I can assure you that we are not willing to accept that it is a non-starter.”
President Trump said Friday that Iran has agreed to hand over its stockpile of enriched uranium.
He also noted that 970 pounds (440 kilograms) of enriched uranium is believed to be buried beneath a nuclear facility that was severely damaged in a U.S. attack last year, and said the U.S. intends to move into Iran to “recover all the nuclear dust.”
Peace talks held in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad over the weekend between a U.S. delegation led by Vice President J.D. Vance and an Iranian negotiator led by Ghalibaf failed to reach an agreement.
Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security said in a statement that Pakistan’s military commander had presented the proposal to Iran as an intermediary during a recent visit to Tehran, and it was still under consideration.
The details of the proposal have not been disclosed.
“Excessive demands”
The council said Iran had not yet responded, but further talks would require the US to “abandon its excessive demands and adjust its demands to the realities on the ground.”
“Following the ceasefire in Lebanon, all commercial shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz are declared fully open for the remainder of the ceasefire period,” Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi said on social media on Friday.
However, ships will have to follow a “coordinated route” announced by Iran’s maritime authorities, Araghchi said. It is unclear whether the Iranian government will force ships to pay tolls to transit the strait.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day ceasefire on Thursday, starting at 5pm ET that evening. Israel’s military operation in Lebanon against the militant group Hezbollah, which is closely allied with Iran, is another hurdle in U.S. negotiations with Iran.
—The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
