TEHRAN: The Revolutionary Guards said Tehran would impose controls on shipping in the vital Gulf oil route if Iran was attacked and warned regional states of reprisals if they took part, a newspaper reported yesterday.
Fear of an escalation in the standoff between the West and Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil producer, have been one factor propping up sky-high oil prices. Crude hit a record level on international markets near $143 a barrel on Friday.
Speculation about a possible attack on Iran because of its disputed nuclear ambitions has risen since a report this month said Israel had practiced such a strike, prompting increasingly tough talk of retaliation, if pushed, from Tehran.
“Naturally every country under attack by an enemy uses all its capacity and opportunities to confront the enemy,” Guards chief Mohammad Ali Jafari told Jam-e-Jam newspaper in some of the toughest language Iran has used so far.
“Regarding the main route for exiting energy, Iran will definitely act to impose control on the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz,” Jafari said of the Gulf waterway.
Iranian officials have in the past sent mixed signals about whether Iran would use oil as a weapon. But such threats, when made, have sent jitters through the crude market for fear of disrupting supplies from big OPEC producers in the Gulf.
“If there is a confrontation between us and the enemy from outside the region, definitely the scope (of the confrontation) will reach the oil issue,” Jafari said.
