Iran announced Monday that it will bar countries that impose sanctions on it from traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. The announcement came after the U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes on oil tankers in the region over the weekend.
Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff will decide which countries or individuals took hostile actions — excluding the imposition of sanctions — against Iran, according to the spokesperson for Iran’s Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Commission. The Supreme National Security Council will designate countries or parties that placed sanctions against the country.
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Iran’s new exclusion zone
The decision came shortly after Iran unveiled plans to form an exclusion zone around the Strait to prevent ships from entering the waterway.
The zone will formally be announced in the coming weeks. Iran’s head of the Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, told the country’s state broadcaster the zone “will begin from the line of the U.S. naval blockade, extend toward the Strait of Hormuz, and from this side continue into the Persian Gulf.”
“Any ship that enters this area with the intention of passing through the Strait of Hormuz and is identified will be placed on our sanctions list,” Rezaei told Iranian media.
The U.S. and Iran restarted strikes last week after the latest round of peace talks did not produce results that both parties would agree to.
After the strikes on tankers over the weekend, U.S. military officials threatened Iran with escalating action.
“Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours,” Adm. Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, said in a statement Saturday on X.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also threatened to target more Iranian oil tankers if Iran targeted the U.S. Navy.
Iran’s speaker of the parliament responded Monday morning, ABC News reported.
“It’s simple: the oil and gas production chain here is sprawling, accessible, and exposed,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said. “American oil and gas companies across these waters and facilities share that exposure. Strike our assets and you get struck. We’ve already proven it. Ask the bases that are no longer viable.”
The cost of oil reached about $93 per barrel on Monday morning after the strikes and announcements.
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