{"id":22642,"date":"2026-04-30T14:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/22642\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T14:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:27:18","slug":"irans-leader-vows-to-protect-nuclear-and-missile-capabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/22642\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s leader vows to protect nuclear and missile capabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Iran\u2019s supreme leader said Thursday that the Islamic Republic will protect its \u201cnuclear and missile capabilities\u201d as a national asset, likely seeking to draw a hard line as U.S. President Donald Trump presses for a wider deal<\/a> to cement the war\u2019s shaky three-week ceasefire. <\/p>\n

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei maintained his defiant tone since taking over following the killing of his father in the war\u2019s opening airstrikes. In a written statement read by a state television anchor, Khamenei \u2014 who has not been seen in public since becoming supreme leader \u2014 said the only place Americans belonged in the Persian Gulf is \u201cat the bottom of its waters\u201d and that a \u201cnew chapter\u201d was being written in the region\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

His remarks come as Iran\u2019s oil industry is being squeezed<\/a> by a U.S. Navy blockade halting its oil tankers from getting out to sea. But the world economy is also under pressure as Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all crude oil is transported. On Thursday, the global benchmark for oil, Brent crude, traded as high as $126 a barrel<\/a>. <\/p>\n

That shock to oil supplies and prices is putting pressure on Trump, who is floating a new plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under the plan, the United States would continue its blockade on Iranian ports, while coordinating with allies to impose higher costs on Iran\u2019s attempts to subvert the free flow of energy, according to a senior administration official.<\/p>\n

Trump is weighing multiple diplomatic and policy options to push Iran to end its chokehold on the waterway, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. <\/p>\n

The new proposal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is Trump\u2019s latest effort to persuade other nations to help reopen the strait.<\/p>\n

Ceasefire shaken as strait remains shut<\/p>\n

With a fragile ceasefire<\/a> in place, the U.S. and Iran are locked in a standoff over the strait. The U.S blockade<\/a> is designed to prevent Iran from selling its oil, depriving it of crucial revenue while also potentially creating a situation where Tehran has to shut off production because it has nowhere to store oil.<\/p>\n

The strait\u2019s closure<\/a> is also problem for the U.S.’s Gulf allies, which use the waterway to export their oil and gas.<\/p>\n

A recent Iranian proposal would push negotiations on the country\u2019s nuclear program<\/a> to a later date. Trump said one of the major reasons he went to war was to deny Iran the ability to develop nuclear weapons. Iran long has maintained its program is peaceful, though it enriched uranium at near-weapons-grade levels of 60%. <\/p>\n

Pakistan on Thursday said it was still facilitating indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran aimed at easing tensions, but Islamabad would also welcome direct communication between the two sides, even by phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the two parties can engage in real-time conversations, that could ease the sticking points,\u201d said Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Tahir Andrabi at a weekly news briefing. He declined to share details of any Iranian or U.S. proposals.<\/p>\n

Speaking to mark Persian Gulf Day in Iran, Khamenei\u2019s remarks signaled that nuclear issues and Iran\u2019s ballistic missile program wouldn\u2019t be traded away. <\/p>\n

\u201cNinety million proud and honorable Iranians inside and outside the country regard all of Iran\u2019s identity-based, spiritual, human, scientific, industrial and technological capacities \u2014 from nanotechnology and biotechnology to nuclear and missile capabilities \u2014 as national assets, and will protect them just as they protect the country\u2019s waters, land and airspace,\u201d Khamenei said.<\/p>\n

Khamenei referred to America as the \u201cGreat Satan,\u201d a long hurled insult by Iranian leaders toward the U.S. since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He said Americans should have no business in the Persian Gulf. <\/p>\n

\u201cForeigners who come from thousands of kilometers away to act with greed and malice there have no place in it \u2014 except at the bottom of its waters,\u201d said Khamenei, who was reportedly was wounded in the Feb. 28 attack that killed his father, the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, <\/p>\n

Khamenei signals strait will remain shut<\/p>\n

In his remarks, Khamenei seemed to signal Iran would maintain its control over the waterway, which sits in the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. Iran had been charging some ships reportedly $2 million apiece to travel through the strait. <\/p>\n

He said that Iran\u2019s control of the Strait of Hormuz will make the Gulf more secure, and that Tehran\u2019s \u201clegal rules and new management\u201d of the strait will benefit all the region\u2019s nations.<\/p>\n

However, the world considered the strait an international waterway, open to all without paying tolls. Gulf Arab nations, chief among them the United Arab Emirates, have decried Iran\u2019s control of the strait as akin to piracy. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Washington, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Iran\u2019s supreme leader said Thursday that the Islamic Republic will protect its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,3721,38,274,50,8,597,19,103,96,98,655,9,2896,67,969,9329,7,875,100,69,3120,106],"class_list":{"0":"post-22642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-ali-khamenei","9":"tag-blockades","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-energy-industry","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-international-agreements","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-iran-government","17":"tag-iran-war","18":"tag-military-and-defense","19":"tag-mojtaba-khamenei","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-oil-and-gas-industry","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-religion","24":"tag-tahir-andrabi","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-u-s-navy","27":"tag-united-states-government","28":"tag-washington-news","29":"tag-waterways","30":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116494129065332746","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}