IRGC warns Iran’s coast will become a ‘graveyard’ if US strikes resume

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ABONE OL

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A senior IRGC Navy official warned on Wednesday that Iran would “turn the area from Chabahar to Mahshahr into a graveyard for aggressors” if the US resumed military action.

“Our fighters today carry in their chests the urge for hand-to-hand battle with the enemy,” the IRGC Navy’s political deputy Mohammad Akbarzadeh said, according to Tasnim news agency.

Akbarzadeh said Iran’s armed forces were at full readiness and described the prospect of renewed war as remote, attributing that to what he called the “weakness” of the opposing side.

Chabahar and Mahshahr are Iranian port cities at opposite ends of the country’s long coastline — spanning roughly 1,500 kilometres from the Gulf of Oman to the end of the Persian Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz lies between them.

Akbarzadeh also said the US had suffered a strategic defeat over the strait.

“They claimed that they could reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but after the closure of this waterway, even with all their power they could not accomplish anything,” he said.

“The Americans think they can speak to the Islamic Republic with the language of force, but apparently they still have not learned that one should not speak to Iranians with the language of threats.”

A Pentagon official separately assessed that the US naval blockade had adversely affected some $5 billion (€4.3bn) in Iran’s oil revenues.

Negotiations between Tehran and Washington over an initial agreement are reported to be closer to a conclusion than at any point since the ceasefire took effect on 8 April, although control of the Strait and the nuclear file remain the two areas where neither side has budged in their demands.

Speaking from Moscow, where he attended a security conference, Deputy Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Bagheri Kanisaid the two sides had not yet agreed on lifting the blockade.

He said Tehran’s enriched uranium stockpiles were not on the negotiating agenda, and confirmed that Iran and Oman were in separate talks over a new procedure for ship passage through the Strait of Hormuz.