Iran has granted permission for a number of Iraqi oil tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz following repeated requests from Baghdad, state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.

The concession followed a visit to Iraq by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Iraqi President Nizar Amedi said Iran had already facilitated the passage of some Iraqi oil vessels, calling the issue complicated.

Iraq, which was producing roughly 4 million barrels per day before the war, is also pursuing alternative export routes through Turkey’s Ceyhan port and Syria’s Baniyas and Jordan’s Aqaba ports.

U.S. President Donald Trump told a rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, that he now views the Strait of Hormuz as “American territory” and has “total control” of it, questioning whether the United States even wants a deal with Iran on those terms. He reiterated that Iran “will never” obtain a nuclear weapon.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdel-Aty spoke by phone on Saturday with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, discussing efforts to de-escalate regional tensions, the Oman-Iran negotiations, and prospects for reviving the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding signed June 18.

Abdel-Aty stressed the importance of freedom of international navigation and Gulf security, while hearing Araghchi’s assessment of the negotiations

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei in a state TV interview said the gap between America’s inability to reopen Hormuz and its claim to own it “is greater than the 7,000-mile distance between Washington and the Strait,” declaring a “post-American order” in the Gulf.

In the TV interview, Rezaei said the American public opposes war with Iran and doesn’t support its government or military, while Iranians remain united behind their armed forces. He said Washington has “completely lost hope” in military strikes and now believes an economic blockade can succeed, claiming Netanyahu told Trump Iran would surrender within two to six months under blockade, a notion he dismissed as “empty talk,” saying Iran has long experience evading sanctions.

Rezaei warned that “if Trump wants to do something, we will retaliate like an earthquake,” adding Iran isn’t seeking to widen the war but would treat any Gulf state joining the U.S. economic campaign as an enemy, with “not a drop of oil” leaving the Gulf or Hormuz.

He said any reopening of Hormuz would be “managed by Tehran” and carry a fee, unrelated to the Iran-Oman deal on the strait’s middle route, and that Iran’s forces are “ready for operations” but would act with “logical and wise inclination.”

He added Iran has so far targeted only military bases, not economic interests, but would strike U.S. oil and economic companies region-wide if the economic war escalates, vowing Iran would “fiercely defend” itself “to the last drop of blood.”

On the new Pakistan-Turkey-Saudi defense pact, he said it signals Washington’s message that “it wants to leave the region,” questioning why Iran should endorse an agreement it hasn’t seen.

Earlier on Friday, Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews that new sanctions targeting oil smuggling, financial transfers, exchange houses, ship registries and front companies represented an “Economic D-Day,” urging allies to join in isolating Iran. He cited Iran’s “350% inflation” and unpaid military personnel.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack’s remarks “full of inaccuracies” and said they contradicted President Trump’s official position.

Katz was responding to Barrack’s suggestion that Israel’s strike on Syria’s Abu al-Duhur airbase may have been meant to “bait” Turkey ahead of Israel’s elections, and Barrack’s comment calling the Golan Heights “occupied,” contradicting Washington’s 2019 recognition of Israeli sovereignty there.

Rather than rebutting either claim point-by-point, Katz described a security process, the IDF had recommended the strike over Turkish deployment concerns, Syria’s government was warned “at the highest levels” beforehand, and the strike was authorized only after that warning went unanswered.

Syria’s foreign ministry condemned the strike as a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic and the integrity of its territory, and a blatant breach of international law,” adding it comes “in the context of repeated Israeli attacks on Syrian territory.”

Source: Investing.com