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US President Donald Trump has said he plans to declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory after successfully defeating Iran.
He said this to a rally crowd in Nassau County on Friday.
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“After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Mr Trump said.
He told the crowd that the defeat of Iran would happen “pretty soon,” while also saying that making the international waterway a US territory would require deploying troops in the area indefinitely.
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“Essentially, that’s what it is. We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to,” he added.
Iran, in response, has declared that the waterway cannot be seized nor made a US territory.
The Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, in a statement, said, “The Strait cannot be seized with a tweet, an aircraft carrier, an executive order, or a campaign speech. Iran neither fears threats nor is intimidated by displays of force.”
“The strait will be closed or opened solely under Iran’s authority, and as long as you refuse to accept the reality of defeat and abandon your delusions, Iran will continue enforcing the blockade,” he added.
Traffic through the Strait has been central to peace negotiations between the US and Iran. Both countries have been locked in a struggle over control of the narrow maritime route for months. Before the US-Israeli joint attack in February that triggered the war, navigation through the route was free for everyone.
An Iranian blockade, followed by a US blockade, disrupted the energy market and caused oil prices to skyrocket globally.
But Mr Trump said he has no regrets about the war.
The US leader said he would “never apologise” for taking military action against Iran.
Mr Trump said the higher gas prices have been worth it in his pursuit of preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Iran has repeatedly denied seeking to have a nuclear weapon, but successive American leaders and other Western leaders have insisted Iran has a plan for it.
“For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember you’re doing it so that a very evil country cannot have — a country, really, it’s the number one state sponsor of terror in the world — we don’t want to have them have a nuclear weapon. So remember that when you have to pay a little bit more,” Mr Trump said.
Meanwhile, negotiation attempts have been fraught.
On Sunday, Mr Trump said the US was “low-keying” considering talks with Iran.
“We are only semi-negotiating with them,” he said in an interview with Axios.
However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in the early hours of Saturday that Tehran has not decided whether to resume negotiations with the US.
Mr Araghchi said that the mediators, Qatar and Pakistan, have exchanged messages, but those interactions do not constitute negotiations.
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