TEHRAN: Iran announced yesterday that it has put the elite Revolutionary Guards in charge of defending the country’s territorial Gulf waters in what appeared to be a hardening of its stance.
US commanders in the Gulf have in the past said they find Guards ships more confrontational than the regular Iranian Navy, which until the new order was responsible for Iranian defenses in the Gulf. Iran has warned repeatedly that it will close the narrow Hormuz Strait at the mouth of the Gulf if the United States or Israel attacks it amid tensions over Iran’s nuclear program.
Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, the top military adviser of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced the change on the state news agency IRNA.
Safavi, who was the head of the Guards until earlier this year, added a warning that all vessels in the Gulf are within the range of Iranian missiles.
The security changes were announced as the head of the country’s chamber of commerce said international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear drive are raising trade costs.
“In dollar figures the average price of imported goods has increased by about 48 percent,” Mohammad Nahavandian was quoted as saying in the Sarmayeh newspaper. “In purchases by euro, prices have increased by 25 percent.”
Tehran is under several sets of UN and EU sanctions because of its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
