Iran to announce ‘restricted zone’ outside Hormuz Strait: Top security official

Iran plans to establish a restricted zone around the Strait of Hormuz and sanction vessels entering without coordination, security chief Mohsen Rezaei said. Tehran also claims the waterway remains closed, while warning of military action against ships amid tensions with the United States

Tehran:  Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei has said that his country would announce a restricted zone outside the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days and place any ship attempting to transit the area on Tehran’s sanctions list.

In an interview with state-run IRIB TV, which was broadcast Sunday night (local time), Rezaei said that the zone would extend from “the line where the US naval blockade begins to the Strait of Hormuz region and inside the Persian Gulf on the other side (of the strait).”

---

Ships that enter the zone without coordination with Iran, he added, would face sanctions affecting their insurance coverage and future passage through the waterway. Rezaei framed the move as part of a broader strategic shift in Iran’s approach to war and diplomacy, aiming at increasing pressure on Washington, reports Xinhua news agency.

The security official stressed that the Strait of Hormuz is completely closed, dismissing the US claim that ships and oil tankers are crossing the waterway as a “lie.”

While acknowledging that some vessels attempt to cross the strait via a route near Oman, often switching off their navigation systems to evade detection, Rezaei said most of those ships “receive blows.” Yet he added that Iran does not intend to sink them for now due to environmental concerns.

Rezaei further revealed that Iran had test-fired for the first time a domestically developed anti-destroyer missile above a US aircraft carrier 48 hours ago, describing it as a warning that the US naval blockade is vulnerable.

“The special missile created a hell for the Americans, and they fled,” he said. Rezaei said the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed unless the United States takes practical steps to fulfil its obligations under a peace memorandum of understanding signed between Tehran and Washington in June. In the coming days, he added, a new international corridor designated by Iran and Oman for passage through the strait would be announced, emphasising that the corridor would be under Iran’s management.

Following US-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran restricted passage through the Strait of Hormuz, while US forces imposed a naval blockade targeting vessels travelling to or from Iranian ports and coastal areas.