Iran says to announce new restricted zone in the Gulf in the coming days

DUBAI: Iran said it will announce a new restricted zone in the Gulf in the coming days, along with maps of a new shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz, as a weekend exchange of strikes on shipping sent oil prices higher on Monday (Sep 7).

The new restricted zone will begin from where the US blockade of Iran begins and extend into areas of the Gulf, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Sunday in an interview with state TV.

Few details were provided on the plan, but Rezaei said any ship entering the new zone would be added to a sanctions list.

In addition, maps detailing passage routes for the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy conduit largely closed to tanker traffic, would also be approved soon, Rezaei said.

"The maps of a new international corridor which lies in Iranian and Omani waters and in which Iran will have management have been agreed and should be signed in the coming days," he said.

"We will only commit to the Strait of Hormuz being open when they (the Americans) stop the sabotage, threats and attacks on Iran," Rezaei added.

Six months after US-Israeli strikes on Iran sparked the war, the conflict appears to be at a stalemate. A preliminary ceasefire accord reached in June has unravelled, and little progress has been made in diplomatic efforts to get the peace process back on track.

After a pause in military action for much of August, tit-for-tat strikes have resumed. US forces struck three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday, US Central Command said, including one off Kharg Island, Iran's key oil export hub, following attacks by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on US warships in the region.

Tehran has shown it retains the capability to attack US interests in neighbouring countries and to shut down oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of global oil supplies flowed prior to the conflict.

An average of 10 commodity ships transited the Strait per day in the past 10 days, the lowest since May, according to shipping data on Monday. That helped oil prices extend last week's big gains, with Brent crude up 0.8 per cent above US$97 a barrel.

SANCTIONS, OIL BLOCKADE SQUEEZE ECONOMY

Iran has said it will step up efforts to tackle problems created by US sanctions that are crippling its economy.

However, the US campaign to throttle Iran's economy by blockading its oil exports and stopping sanctions evasion is growing increasingly difficult to withstand, three senior Iranian sources have said.

Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on Sunday that the US should understand that the rules of the game have changed "before it is too late".

"From now on, any attack against Iran’s interests and security will receive a faster, heavier and more painful response,” he said in a speech published on his Telegram channel.

Qalibaf said that alongside the military front, Iran’s main battle was now over production and people’s livelihoods.

He cited sharp currency fluctuations, inflation, unemployment and market management as major challenges, adding Iranians could tolerate hardship but not mismanagement or inaction and expected the government to act quickly.

Iran's Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh said Tehran planned to respond to US economic pressure with reforms and rejected the notion that sanctions would cause it to change course, according to state media on Sunday.

"They speak of economic pressure and isolation, of breaking off financial ties and they think that by pressuring the economy of a country, they can change the decisions of its people," Madanizadeh said.

"I have to clarify one point: The responsibility of reforming Iran’s economy is with its government and people, not with the US Treasury."

KHARG ISLAND HIT 550 TIMES IN PRIOR MONTHS, IRAN SAYS

Iran is the third-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and exported 90 per cent of its crude via its Kharg Island export hub before the war. Flows have been disrupted since a US blockade of Iranian oil exports began in mid-April.

US Central Command said on X that as of Sunday, it had redirected 92 commercial vessels, disabled three and boarded two to ensure strict compliance with its blockade.

On Aug 31, US President Donald Trump issued a one-line social media post accompanied by an AI-generated video depicting Kharg Island being "blown to smithereens". Iranian authorities have vowed a strong response if Kharg is attacked.

In an interview aired on state TV on Sunday, Iran's Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said the island had been hit around 550 times in previous months but continued to operate.

Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has pushed up fuel prices, weighing on Trump's popularity as his Republican Party heads into elections in November when control of Congress is at stake.

However, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said oil was getting through the waterway.

"Our transits through the Strait are averaging over 9 million barrels a day now, and with the access pipelines that go around the strait, we're probably two-thirds or more of pre-conflict flows. So Iranians are still causing trouble, but the United States Navy is winning that battle," he told CNN.