Tabnak – Claiming to act for preserving maritime security in the Persian Gulf, the United States is trying to form an international coalition to increase pressures on Iran. Iranian officials, both political and military, warn that the American move would only make the strategic maritime passage insecure.
In this vein, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif highlighted the US administration’s plots against the Middle East region and said the Islamic Republic is trying to protect the Persian Gulf’s security and the US should know that it is unable to make it insecure.
Iran with 1,500 miles of coastlines is the biggest Persian Gulf littoral state, Zarif said in a speech on the risk of war and the future of the Persian Gulf at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs in Oslo on Thursday.
He added that half of the Strait of Hormuz is under Iran’s control and no one can ensure its security without Iran.
“They (US officials) should know that they cannot create insecurity,” Zarif stated, adding that if anyone wants the security of the Persian Gulf, he should know that it should be secure for all countries.
In the same vein, the chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says array of countries other than the Persian Gulf’s own littoral states cannot provide the region’s security.
"No [extra-regional] country or coalition of countries would be able to maintain security in this region save for the littoral states of the Persian Gulf," Major General Hossein Salami, who was speaking from the holy city of Mashhad, said on Thursday.
The IRGC's top commander added, “We believe in a regional security system with the participation of the Persian Gulf [littoral] states, and consider foreign presence in the Persian Gulf to be contradictory to security [of this region].”
He described any other security mechanism other than one, in which Iran and the rest of the regional states play the pivotal role, as “unfeasible,” reminding that all past experiences of foreign presence under the guise of security missions have only resulted in the “escalation of tensions and even warfare.”
The remarks came as the US has announced plans to form a coalition to supposedly protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz from what it calls an Iranian threat following a series of mysterious attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman.
Washington has accused Iran of having a hand in those attacks, a claim Tehran has strongly rejected. Tehran has warned that such sabotage operations may be part of a general ploy to target Iran amid increasing regional tensions.
