Iran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Tuesday renewed threats against Mideast Gulf energy supplies and infrastructure, warning they could become targets if the US does not end its naval blockade of Iran.
This is the latest in a series of verbal threats of violence from Tehran and Washington that come even as they renew indirect talks about the Iranian nuclear programme, and more broadly, a pathway to end their seven-month war.
Tehran last week said it would be ready to allow free transit of vessels through the strait of Hormuz if the US lifted its naval blockade of Iranian trade and repatriated all frozen Iranian assets, among other conditions. US president Donald Trump said he had rejected the proposal.
The blockade has largely cut off Iranian crude exports since mid-July, although some crude in floating storage outside the Mideast Gulf can still reach independent refiners in China. Vessel transit through Hormuz has ticked up in recent weeks, prompting US officials to say the strait is open. Trump has repeatedly said Hormuz is under US control.
Ghalibaf, who has been leading talks with the US since April, dismissed this claim.
"Both the US and other countries should know that in a region where we do not sell oil, nobody will sell oil," he said. "And if our security is not ensured, no infrastructure will be safe."
Ghalibaf issued a similar warning in July after Trump threatened to target Iranian infrastructure. More recently, Iran warned it would spread the war into the Indian Ocean, after Trump used his UN General Assembly speech to attack Tehran's leadership.
Iran regularly attacked regional oil and gas infrastructure earlier in the war, but has restricted itself to targeting commercial vessels transiting the strait since its July warning. But militia groups in Iraq and Yemen aligned with Tehran have targeted Saudi energy infrastructure in recent weeks, including the 7mn b/d East-West pipeline that Saudi Arabia had used to divert much of its crude exports to the Red Sea.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi on Monday said Iran was waiting for the formal US response to its offer to allow free transit through Hormuz in exchange for the US lifting its blockade.
"They had ideas, and we have a discussion that they will raise again with the Americans," Araghchi said. "The final American response will be conveyed to us after that, which I hope will come by [Tuesday]."
