Iran’s Revolutionary Guards insisted Sunday that they would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the United States complied with a list of demands, including paying compensation for war damage.
Iran’s effective blockade of the crucial energy conduit has rattled allies, roiled markets, and driven up prices. Still, US President Donald Trump said Sunday that he was “low-keying it” in his approach to Tehran, suggesting he believed he could wait them out economically.
Tehran insists on retaining control of the Hormuz after the war and wants to charge tolls for passage, repeatedly striking ships it accuses of attempting to circumvent its preferred route.
Attacks in the waterway, which was free to transit before the war, led to the collapse of an April ceasefire, and mediators have urged both sides to return to the terms of a subsequent June memorandum that set out a path for peace talks.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council laid out on Saturday a list of conditions for reopening the strait, including an end to the war on all fronts, the lifting of a US counterblockade of Iranian ports, the end of sanctions, the release of frozen assets, and compensation for wartime damage, the Tasnim news agency reported.
Those conditions echoed the terms of the June agreement, which included a provision to create a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday that their strategy was to maintain their blockade “until the enemy accepts all our conditions… the strait is now actually a theatre of war for us and not just a waterway”.
The closure of Hormuz has driven up prices for American voters, creating a political headache for Trump as November’s midterm elections near. Still, the US leader was optimistic in a conversation with Axios on Sunday.
“We are low-keying it,” Trump said of his approach in an interview.
“We are only semi-negotiating with them,” was quoted as saying. “We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact that they have no money.”
“It will work out,” he added. “It’s like a chess game.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had said earlier on Sunday that Tehran was only “exchanging messages” with the US via intermediaries.
Culled from YahooNews, originally written by AFP