US warns Iran against closing oil route.
Tensions were mounting between Iran and the United States last night over threats by Iran to block the world's most important oil shipping route.
Iran's navy chief yesterday claimed that closing the Strait of Hormuz to ships would be "really easy".
It was the second such warning by Iran in two days, reflecting Tehran's concern that the West is about to impose new sanctions that could hit the country's biggest source of revenue, oil. The Strait of Hormuz is a 6.4km wide channel between Iran and Oman at the mouth of the Gulf through which more than one-third of the world's tanker-borne oil, or about 15 million barrels of oil, pass daily. Most of the crude exported from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq - together with nearly all the liquefied natural gas from lead exporter Qatar - must pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
However, the US military issued a statement saying it would not allow any disruption of shipping traffic. "Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated," said a US military spokesman.
A British Foreign Office spokesman called the Iranian threat "rhetoric," saying: "Iranian politicians regularly use this type of rhetoric to distract attention from the real issue of their nuclear programme."
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