Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia told state television that the U.S. has a long history of broken commitments, from the 2018 JCPOA withdrawal to the latest ceasefire deal violations. He said Washington was trying to impose an unauthorised shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz, contrary to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding that assigns control of transit arrangements to Iran.
"The armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran are obligated to provide the necessary security for passage through the Strait of Hormuz and to apply the arrangements envisioned by Iran under the agreement," he said. "We are standing behind this with full authority and will firmly defend the rights of the Iranian people as stipulated in the agreement."
Akraminia said the army never trusted the Americans and had used the ceasefire to boost readiness and combat capability. "The army's target bank has been updated and has the necessary readiness for all scenarios. The Americans would be better off ending their interventions in the region."
He said the U.S. should consider its regional allies and not expose them to further insecurity, warning that "whenever they have taken action against Iran, they have received their response, and the same happened last night." The overnight exchange saw the IRGC close the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. warplanes strike Iran's southern coast, and Iranian ballistic missiles hit U.S. bases in Jordan and Qatar, and Oman.
The spokesman also praised the mass funeral turnout for the martyred Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei as a display of national unity and soft power, saying the people had turned grief into an epic and demanded vengeance for the martyred leader.
MNA