Iran Says It Could Close Strait of Hormuz, But Doesn’t Want To
- Foreign minister calls the waterway his country’s lifeline
- U.K. seizure of ship carrying Iranian oil was ‘piracy’: Zarif
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Iran is capable of shutting the Strait of Hormuz -- a crucial choke-point for oil flows -- but doesn’t want to do it, the country’s foreign minister said.
“We certainly have the ability to do it, but we certainly don’t want to do it because the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf are our lifeline,” Mohammad Javad Zarif said Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television in New York. “It has to be secured. We play a big role in securing it, but it has to be secure for everybody.”