Tehran will never cede control of Strait of Hormuz, senior Iranian politician tells BBC
"Never." That's when a senior Iranian lawmaker says they'll be ready to give up their control of the Strait of Hormuz.
"Never." That's when a senior Iranian lawmaker says they'll be ready to give up their control of the Strait of Hormuz.
"It's our inalienable right," Ebrahim Azizi, a former commander in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), tells the BBC in Tehran. "Iran will decide the right of passage, including permissions for vessels to pass through the Strait."
And he says that's about to become enshrined in law.
"We are introducing a bill in parliament, based on article 110 of the constitution, which includes the environment, maritime safety and national security - and the armed forces will implement the law," says this member of parliament who heads the Committee for National Security and Foreign Policy.
As worry mounts about the closure of this strategic waterway causing growing economic shocks worldwide, it's becoming clear this is not a short-term crisis to be resolved in a day.
War has handed Tehran what it sees as a new weapon - Azizi described this highly strategic strait Iran has managed to weaponise during this conflict as "one of our assets to face the enemy".
He's a key player in a parliament dominated by hardliners. Azizi also reflects the thinking among some of the senior decision-makers emerging in the new order born of this war, which has become increasingly militarised and also dominated by hardliners, most of all the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), after a series of high-level assassinations in Israeli strikes.
Tehran now sees its ability to control the passage of vital maritime traffic, including critical oil and gas tankers, not just as a bargaining chip in current negotiations, but as long-term leverage.
"The first priority for Iran after the war is to restore deterrence and the Strait of Hormuz is among Iran's principal strategic leverages," explains Mohammad Eslami, a research fellow at the University of Tehran.
"Tehran is open to discussing how other nations can benefit from Iran's new framework for the strait, but control is the bottom line."
But that's a future rejected by some of Iran's neighbours already furious about its attacks on their countries during the five weeks of war, which is now on pause in a fragile temporary ceasefire.
"An act of hostile piracy" is how Dr Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates, described it to me in a recent interview.
He warned that if Iran refused to relinquish its control of these international waters it would set a "dangerous precedent" for other strategic waterways in the world.
"They are the pirates who sold our region to the Americans," was Azizi's retort in a reference to the US military bases across the Middle East which, along with other infrastructure, were repeatedly targeted by Iran's drones and missiles. The US, he added, was "the biggest pirate in the world".
"We have always said we need to work together to secure our region," Azizi emphasised.
That's a vision that has been shattered for most Gulf states, except for Oman, one of Iran's closest allies in this region, which controls the southern coast of the strait. It had been involved in discussions with Tehran earlier this month to ensure the smooth and safe transit of vessels.
There have also been signs of disagreements – it's unclear how strong – within Iran's military and political elite.
This was on display in recent rare and strongly worded criticism of Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi when he posted a statement on social media on Friday saying the Strait of Hormuz was "completely open".
US President Donald Trump had immediately responded with a capitalised "THANK YOU" in a post on social media.
Within minutes, news outlets linked to the IRGC rebuked Araghchi.
The state-run Mehr news agency said the foreign minister's post had "provided the best opportunity for Trump to go beyond reality, declare himself the winner of the war and celebrate victory".
Another news agency, Tasnim, described it as a "bad and incomplete tweet that created misleading ambiguity about the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz".
Araghchi stressed the waterway was only open to ships authorised by the IRGC navy and through designated routes that required the payment of tolls.
Azizi dismissed any impressions of rifts within the regime. "When it comes to national security, there are no moderate or hardline approaches."
The fate of this strait will be decided at the most senior echelons of the state. It's one of the core issues in the high-level talks reportedly set to resume in Islamabad on Tuesday after a first round of historic face-to-face negotiations took place in the Pakistani capital last weekend.
Trump has said he was sending a delegation a White House official told the BBC will be headed again by US Vice-President JD Vance.
Iranian officials are so far silent on whether their own team, led by parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, will return to Pakistan. Local media are reporting that Iran won't attend as long as a US blockade of Iranian ports remains in force.
Trump has repeatedly ordered Iran to open this maritime corridor, including in an expletive-laden social media post on 5 April in which he warned Iran would be "living in hell" if it failed to comply with his command.
He's now accused Tehran of trying to "blackmail" the US.
"I don't expect much from a man who twists the truth," Azizi scoffs. "We are just defending our rights in the face of American blackmail."
Like many high-level Iranians, he often hits back at Trump with mocking social media posts on X. Their trolling underlies how they enjoy access to the international internet denied to the vast majority of Iranians in the near-total digital blackout in force for many weeks.
Azizi, whose parliamentary file also includes national security, wouldn't say when it would be lifted, only emphasising "when it is safe and secure we will lift the ban so that the enemy will not take advantage".
I also asked him about recent waves of arrests and what human rights groups, including Amnesty International, say are dozens of death sentences handed down to protesters detained during January's nationwide protests, which were crushed with lethal forces and killed many thousands. Several executions, including of young people, have recently been carried out.
Azizi repeated the government's claim that the US and Israeli spy agencies (the CIA and Mossad, respectively) had been involved in the unrest.
He dismissed rising concern among some Iranians that internal security will tighten further.
"In war, even in a ceasefire, there are rules," he declared.
