US military pressure forcing Hormuz closure – Iran

Washington must cease its strong-arm tactics before shipping can resume through the key waterway, the Foreign Ministry in Tehran has said The Strait of Hormuz cannot be reopened through diplomacy while Washington continues to use military pressure against Tehran, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has said.Iran closed Hormuz in response to a US-Israeli military campaign launched in late February. Washington subsequently imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports, escalating a standoff over a strategic waterway that has historically carried around a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade.Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Monday that diplomacy is “certainly” part of the “struggle to safeguard our national interests,” but added that “when dealing with a side that insists on the use of force, a maritime blockade is not a diplomatic action that we can lift through diplomacy.” “Certainly, you have to use authority and military power, along with diplomacy, to prevent the United States’ aggression, and that is what is being done,” Baghaei told a press briefing.Tehran has set out a series of conditions for reopening the strait, including compensation for war damage, the ...