UAE Condemns Iran for Expanding the Strait of Hormuz Blockade to Fujairah Port

The US has gone as far as the waters near the Strait of Hormuz to blockade ships entering and leaving ports in Iran, adding to the tension of the conflict in the Middle East. (X @CENTCOM)

JAKARTA - A high-ranking official of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has criticized the controlled maritime zone that cannot be crossed by Iranian-unlicensed ships in the Strait of Hormuz to the Emirate's waters south of Fujairah Port.

He stressed this following an announcement from Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) regarding the expanded control over the Strait of Hormuz. UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash assessed Iran's plan as "mere wishful thinking"

"The regime is trying to build a new reality born of a clear military defeat, but attempts to control the Strait of Hormuz or violate the UAE's maritime sovereignty are mere wishful thinking," Gargash said in a post on X, Thursday, May 21, quoted from Al Jazeera.

Iran's new map extends the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz to UAE waters supervised by the new body of the Iranian Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) as of May 20, 2026. (X @PGSA_IRAN)

PGSA which is a new Iranian body focused on monitoring the Strait of Hormuz announced that its control area in the Strait of Hormuz had been expanded.

Details related to this were conveyed by PGSA on its X account on Wednesday, May 20, accompanied by the upload of a new map of the controlled maritime zone of the Strait of Hormuz.

The authority said the zone extends from Kuh-e Mubarak in Iran to the south of Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), at the eastern entrance of the strait, and from the tip of Qeshm Island in Iran to Umm Al-Quwain, in the UAE at the western entrance.

It added that "transit through the zone for the purpose of passing through the Strait of Hormuz requires coordination with, and authorization from, the Arab Gulf Authority for the Strait."

Traffic through the distribution route of about 20 percent of global oil and energy supplies has been under Iranian control since the outbreak of war with Israel and the US on February 28, 2026.

The Fujairah Port in the UAE has oil infrastructure designed to avoid the Strait of Hormuz.