TEHRAN, Aug 12 – Iran’s top security official says the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, where Iran has imposed restrictions on transit since early March because of the US-Israeli aggression against the country, will only happen when the United States accepts Iran’s conditions,
Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said.
Mohsen Rezaei, the newly appointed head of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), told Chinese Ambassador to Tehran Zong Piyu in a Tuesday meeting that the US must end the war on Iran and its regional allies and release Iran’s blocked funds for a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
“As long as the US does not change its behaviour and accept Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened,” Rezaei said in the meeting.
He said Iran has also communicated some other conditions to the US through intermediaries that have been involved in indirect negotiations between the two sides in the past weeks.
Rezaei reiterated that if Iran and Oman, the other littoral state in the Strait of Hormuz, reach an agreement on the transit routes in the waterway, that agreement will have no impact on Iran’s decision to close or reopen the strait.
In his meeting with the Chinese ambassador to Iran, Rezaei appreciated as “a positive step” China’s decision to oppose an “anti-Iranian and illegal” draft resolution presented at the UN Security Council during the US-Israeli war of aggression on Iran in March.
He also hailed the strategic partnership between Iran and China and the fact that the two countries are members of key international pacts such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS, saying the partnership can serve as a great capacity for the development of bilateral relations in the future.
