Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Sunday it would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which is vital to the world economy, until the United States met Tehran’s conditions set out the day before, including compensation for war damages.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said discussions with Oman over transit and management of the strait were “approaching the final stages,” but added that the reopening of Hormuz “is subject to other conditions and compensation for the violation” of the June agreement.

He denied on Sunday that Iran was negotiating with the United States, saying the sides were merely “exchanging messages” via intermediaries.

Iran has imposed an effective blockade of the strait since the United States and Israel attacked in late February, and wants to charge tolls for passage. It has struck ships it accuses of attempting to circumvent its preferred route.

Continued attacks in the waterway, where transit was free before the war, led to the collapse of an April ceasefire. 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 security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr on Saturday laid out a list of demands for reopening the strait, including an end to the “war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq.”

He also demanded the lifting of a US counterblockade of Iranian ports, the end of sanctions, the release of frozen assets and compensation for wartime damage, according to remarks reported by the Tasnim news agency.

The IRGC on Sunday said its strategy was to maintain the closure “until the enemy accepts all our conditions… the strait is now actually a theater of war for us and not just a waterway.”

The comments came as transit through Hormuz has dropped significantly, with Iran targeting ships it accuses of skirting its preferred route through Iranian waters.

The United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry on Saturday condemned what it called a “hostile Iranian attack that targeted a tanker belonging to ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil........

© The Times of Israel