• How US leader secretly switched planes over Tehran threat
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
Iran has warned that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed to shipping until the United States changes its position and accepts Tehran’s conditions for ending the war, raising fresh concerns over the global supply of crude oil and liquefied natural gas.
The new development comes as the price of oil was choppy yesterday, reaching $90 a barrel for the first time in two weeks before falling back, as the stalemate over the Iran war hardened and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz dwindled.
Brent crude, the global benchmark, jumped 1.6 per cent, touching $90 a barrel before receding to settle just below $89. West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the U.S. benchmark, was up 1.8 per cent to a little over $83 a barrel.
The US-Iran war has dragged on into a sixth month, while shipping in the strait, a narrow path between Iran and Oman that once carried as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply, has been brought to a near standstill.
The warning, issued by Iranian Mohsen Rezaei, the newly appointed secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, represented the strongest indication yet that a potential agreement between Iran and Oman over maritime transit may not be enough to immediately restore normal shipping through the strategic waterway.
“As long as America does not change its behaviour and does not accept Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened,” Rezaei, a close ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, was quoted by semi-official Tasnim news agency as saying.
He said Iran’s demands included an end to the war, the release of its frozen assets and an end to the conflict across the region, including in Lebanon and Gaza.
“America must end the war, pay Iran’s frozen assets, the war must end throughout the region, including in Lebanon and Gaza,” Rezaei said.
He added that any agreement reached between Iran and Oman concerning the passage of vessels through the strait would be separate from the broader issue of reopening the waterway.
The development has renewed uncertainty over one of the world’s most important energy corridors. Before the war, about one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies passed through the Strait of Hormuz, making any prolonged disruption a major threat to international energy markets.
Iran’s position also appeared to complicate recent hopes of progress in negotiations. Pakistan, which has played a key mediating role alongside Qatar, had suggested that Tehran and Washington were moving towards an arrangement that could lead to the reopening of the strait.
“The signals in the last two, three days are that we are close to some sort of an arrangement,” Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said in an interview with Bloomberg News. However, the latest statements from Tehran suggest that significant differences remain.
Rezaei said Iran’s conditions had already been transmitted to the United States through mediators. Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, separately wrote on X that “the punishment of the aggressor continues” and that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until Iran’s conditions were met.
Also, US President Donald Trump,has introduced his own demands as he alternates between threats of further military escalation and suggestions that a peace agreement could be reached.
Trump said that Washington would seek compensation from Iran for what he described as five decades of damage.
“We’re going to ask for money for the damage they’ve done over a 50-year period,” Trump said at the White House. In another interview, Trump said he was considering whether to allow Iran’s economy to deteriorate or strike the country “really, really hard”.
The confrontation has also heightened risks to commercial shipping beyond Hormuz, with fresh reports of attacks in the Gulf of Oman and the Red Sea.
Meanwhile, concerns over an Iranian threat have also prompted extraordinary security measures around Trump’s movements.
Trump reportedly made a secret aircraft switch while leaving Turkey last month after attending a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit, with a US official saying the elaborate operation was designed to protect the president from a potential Iranian assassination attempt.
Trump had travelled to Turkey aboard a new aircraft donated by Qatar that was intended to serve as the new Air Force One. Officials publicly announced that he would instead leave aboard an older presidential aircraft, citing security concerns.
According to the account, however, that was part of a decoy operation.
After boarding the older Air Force One at Ankara, Trump reportedly secretly left the aircraft through a catering vehicle and transferred to a smaller Air Force C-32A. The three aircraft then departed separately for Britain.
Trump subsequently boarded the Qatari-gifted aircraft at RAF Mildenhall and continued his journey to Washington.
The unusual operation became apparent from the presidential travel pool’s account of the journey. Journalists aboard the older Air Force One were instructed to keep the window shades in the press cabin closed, an unusual security measure that Trump later linked to the danger surrounding the flight.
The president told reporters they were “probably on a dangerous flight” because of the threats facing him.
The episode has since drawn renewed attention to the security vulnerabilities of the Qatari aircraft, which officials have regarded as less secure than established presidential aircraft because it still requires extensive retrofitting to meet the full requirements of Air Force One.
White House spokesman Steven Cheung defended the aircraft, saying it had been fitted with “high-level security protocols” to protect the president and his staff.
The revelation comes as Washington and Tehran remain locked in a confrontation in which control of the Strait of Hormuz, attacks on regional shipping and the threat of further military escalation have become central elements of the crisis.