TEHRAN, Oct 22 — Iran will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz or return to negotiations until seven new conditions presented through intermediaries are met, its Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei said, Anadolu Ajansı reported.
“We will not return to the diplomacy of the past, yet we are not abandoning diplomacy altogether,” he said in a statement carried by the ISNA news agency, adding that Tehran was “no longer interested in agreements whose only guarantee was political good faith.”
Iran’s preference was “de-escalation,” but “the longer the US prolonged the war, the stronger Iran would become, although this was not what Tehran wanted.”
Rezaei also warned that if the war resumed, Iran would use new capabilities to target United States (US) assets in the region, including cables and artificial intelligence facilities.
He acknowledged that Iran would suffer from a prolonged blockade, saying “anyone who claimed otherwise was being unrealistic.”
The secretary noted that Tehran targeted “five vessels belonging to smugglers every night over the past two to three months.”
The US and Israel launched the war against Iran on February 28, prompting Tehran to respond with missile and drone attacks in the region and effectively close the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global energy supplies.
A memorandum of understanding, signed in June to pave the way for a final US-Iran peace deal, collapsed amid disagreements over navigation in the Strait.
