tolls<\/a>, while the United States argues it is an international waterway and therefore passage should not be subject to charges.<\/p>\n\u201cThe only authorised route for passage through the Strait of Hormuz is the route announced by the Islamic Republic of Iran,\u201d the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of Iran\u2019s military, said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Any crossing without authorisation is \u201cunacceptable and extremely dangerous\u201d, they warned in a statement.<\/p>\n
They also denounced what they said was a new route through the waterway announced by \u201ccertain authorities\u201d, without elaborating.<\/p>\n
Tanker\u2019s crossing<\/p>\n
The warning comes after a Liberian oil tanker made its way out of the strait on Thursday using a route close to Oman\u2019s shore.<\/p>\n
The Stoic Warrior \u2013 signalling that it planned to transit the Strait of Hormuz \u2013 set off early on Thursday morning on a trip that saw it hug the coast of the United Arab Emirates and then Oman, according to The Associated Press news agency.<\/p>\n
AP said that the vessel then travelled around Oman\u2019s Musandam Peninsula fairly close to the shore, part of a route that Oman laid out alongside the International Maritime Organization, an agency of the United Nations that oversees shipping at sea.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera\u2019s Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, said that the Revolutionary Guards are frustrated over the new route.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is because the new route is somehow bypassing the IRGC\u2019s control on the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Serdar said that the control of the Strait of Hormuz has been \u201ca huge leverage for Iran to put pressure on its adversaries and the global economy since the beginning of the war\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTehran says even after the parties [the US and Iran] reach a final agreement, Iran is not going to give up on this leverage in any way and there will be an Iranian control over there,\u201d our correspondent said.<\/p>\n
Hormuz is a narrow stretch of water between Iran and Oman through which roughly 20 percent of the world\u2019s crude oil and liquefied natural gas normally transits.<\/p>\n
At its narrowest, it is only about 30km (18 miles) wide.<\/p>\n
The only route currently authorised by Iran runs through a corridor that follows the country\u2019s coast.<\/p>\n
A Memorandum of Understanding signed last week by Tehran and Washington to extend their ceasefire stipulates that commercial ships may transit the strait free of charge for the next 60 days.<\/p>\n
With Iran and the US in negotiations over a permanent end to the war, it is unclear what arrangements will be in place after that period.<\/p>\n
Iran and Oman announced on Tuesday that they would study the \u201ccosts\u201d to be charged for services related to the administration of the strait.<\/p>\n
But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, visiting neighbouring Gulf countries this week, said Washington would not accept any tolls or fees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An oil tanker navigates the strait, reportedly hugging the western coast, despite threats from Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,801,129,3,15581,11636,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":["post-724874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-oman","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-canada","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}