Iran’s supreme leader vows to prevent ‘enemy’s abuses’ of Hormuz strait

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Iran’s new supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has vowed to “prevent the enemy’s abuses” of the Strait of Hormuz and safeguard the country’s nuclear capabilities, after talks with the US reached a stalemate.

In a written statement, the leader — who has not been seen in public since he was appointed to take over from his father, who was killed in US-Israeli strikes in February — hailed Iran’s “new management” of the key waterway.

He said Iranians would defend their nuclear and missile capabilities, along with other technologies, as a “national asset” just as they would “defend their water, land, and aerial borders”, as the fate of the country’s nuclear programme sits at the heart of the deadlocked talks with the US.

The hawkish message from Khamenei, whose absence from public view has led to speculation he was badly injured in the strikes that killed his father, Ali Khamenei, followed a push by Iran’s most hardline politicians to oppose negotiations with Washington amid a shaky ceasefire in the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Describing the US as the “Great Satan”, Khamenei said that “a new chapter is being written for the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz” two months after the world’s “bullies” unleashed the war, adding the US had suffered a “humiliating defeat”.

“The bright future of the Persian Gulf region will be a future without America, serving the progress, comfort, and welfare of its nations,” he said in the message to mark Persian Gulf National Day, which commemorates the expulsion of Portuguese forces from the Strait of Hormuz in 1622.

Outsiders who came from thousands of kilometres away to “commit mischief” had no place in the region “except at the bottom of its waters”, Khamenei said.

The US launched its own blockade of Iranian ports after Tehran refused to reopen the key waterway and indicated it would seek to impose a toll system on vessels passing through.

Local media reported last week that Tehran’s central bank had received the first tolls from ships transiting the strait, without specifying any details. The stand-off over the waterway has persisted despite the ceasefire in early April.

The new leader blamed the US for instability in the region, and said US military bases there were “not even capable of ensuring their own security, let alone offering security for those in the region who depend on and worship the US”.

Pakistan had acted as a mediator in talks between the US and Iran following the ceasefire, but a second round of negotiations planned for last weekend fell apart after Iran insisted the US lift its blockade of Iranian ports before any talks. A fifth of the world’s oil and gas had passed through the strait before the war.

On Iran’s nuclear programme, Washington has also demanded that Tehran give up its ability to enrich uranium and hand over its stockpile of the metal enriched close to weapons-grade levels.