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IRAN’S SUPREME NATIONAL Security Council has said the Strait of Hormuz will not open until the US “corrects its behaviour”, issuing new demands that could shake up talks on a deal to manage the waterway and traffic on it.
Iran’s state broadcaster published the statement by the council’s secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who is also a commander in the powerful Revolutionary Guard.
The statement said that the US must never threaten Iran again and must permanently end the war with Iran and its armed allies in the region.
The US must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area, it continued.
It also must “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and “unconditionally” release frozen assets.
There has been no immediate response from the US, which has wanted an acceptable deal first on the strait before ending the blockade.
According to the interim deal signed in June, a schedule to end sanctions and plan on compensation would be part of the final deal, and negotiations would address frozen assets.
The end of a 60-day period to negotiate a final deal will end in just over a week but could be extended.
Iran has said it was close to reaching a separate deal with Oman to manage the strait, which runs between the two countries.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi today said they were close to reaching an agreement on navigation “specifically the determination of a transit route”.
But the waterway’s reopening is contingent on other conditions, he said in remarks shared on social media.
A vessel owned by Abu Dhabi’s state-owned ADNOC oil and gas company was also attacked today, while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, Emirati authorities said.
The Foreign Ministry said Iran fired the missile as part of attacks on commercial shipping.
ADNOC said in a statement that there were no casualties following the attack.
“Over a dozen of its vessels have been attacked by missiles and drones while passing through the strait since the US and Israel launched the war on Iran in February,” the company said.
One crew member was killed and 20 others wounded, it said.
ADNOC did not elaborate on where the attack took place nor on any damage.
Later, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre said a vessel east of the town of Khasab, Oman, had been struck by a projectile that caused a fire that was put out, with the vessel and crew safe.
It was not immediately clear whether this was the ADNOC incident.
Iran and Oman, on the other side of the strait, have been discussing a deal to manage the waterway, which had been considered an international one before the war.
The attacks were in response to the Houthis’ recent strikes in central and eastern Yemen.
Colonel Majed al-Nazili, spokesperson for Yemen’s military, said the attacks targeted the rebels’ “sites and capabilities” on multiple front lines, without elaborating.
The escalation between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognised government and its backer, a Saudi-supported coalition, threatens to reignite Yemen’s civil war following a 2022 truce.
On Friday, United Nations envoy Hans Grundberg urged the parties to exercise restraint, saying that: “Yemen today faces a greater risk of renewed large-scale conflict than at any point since the UN-brokered truce of April 2022″.
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