Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have denied claims made by the United States on Tehran’s nuclear programme, while calling US President Donald Trump “a big liar”.
Mohebbi further challenged US assertions that Iran has lost most of its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz. Mohebbi said Iran would continue to maintain ties with its neighbouring nations despite US economic restrictions, IRNA reported. However, Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf threatened to attack infrastructure around West Asia, saying no infrastructure in the region would be safe if his country’s security was not guaranteed.
“The enemy knows that Iran is not after nuclear weapons…Their issue with Iran is not its nuclear programme but rather its vastness, which they want to destroy,” IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi said, according to Reuters news agency. “The fact that the Americans might manage, at great expense, considerable trouble, and high risk to sneak a small vessel through the Strait of Hormuz under cover of darkness to export, say, 100 or 200 barrels of oil does not mean the Strait is open,” the IRGC spokesperson said. On the American bases in the region, the IRGC spokesperson said they had failed to provide security. “In a message to neighbours, I believe that the governments and nations of the region have come to realise that US Bases not only fail to provide security, but are themselves a source of insecurity,” Mohebbi said. He added that the US had “poured trillions of dollars into the region” and stationed extensive military infrastructure and weaponry there, while “claiming to be safeguarding regional security. “In a region where we cannot sell oil, no one else will sell oil either; or if our security is not guaranteed, no infrastructure will remain safe,” Ghalibaf said, according to a video released by Iran’s state TV on Tuesday.
Iran’s foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi had said he was expecting a formal response from American officials on the plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday.
