Iran has rejected United States claims of control over the Strait of Hormuz, with senior officials insisting the strategic waterway remains under Tehran’s management.
Hossein Taeb, head of the paramilitary Basij forces affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said on Thursday that the strait remains under Iranian control and the country continues operating with complete security, according to state television.
His comments followed President Donald Trump’s claim a day earlier that America controls the vital energy transit route.
“The U.S.A. has total control over the Strait of Hormuz. I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday.
Trump described the US naval presence as a “wall of steel” and claimed Iran could do nothing about it.
This is not the first time Washington has claimed control over the strait. Iran has consistently rejected these assertions, saying it effectively controls the waterway and plans to impose a toll system.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on Thursday the US has made intelligence failures regarding the waterway.
“The U.S. has long miscalculated due to intelligence failures. Case in point: The war on Iran. Now, an even bigger miscalculation on the Strait of Hormuz,” he wrote on X.
Iranian parliamentarian Behnam Saeedi, a member of the National Security Commission, told state TV on Thursday that the strait is closed to American and Israeli ships.
“Ships belonging to the Zionist regime will not have the right to pass through the Strait of Hormuz under any circumstances, whether in war or peacetime,” he said, adding that US military ships would also be barred.
Iran and Oman have been negotiating a new route through the strait, though talks have not yet concluded. Tehran says any new route would not automatically open the waterway unless the US meets Iranian demands.
