JAKARTA - Foreign Minister Marco Rubio on Monday said the United States could not accept Iran "determining who has the right to use international waterways", referring to the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran's efforts to establish the status quo.
The Mullah's country had previously said it would open the strait blockade as part of an agreement with the United States, after the US-Israeli joint war against Iran earlier this year.
However, Foreign Minister Rubio said the offer was not without meaning.
"What they mean by opening the strait is, 'Yes, the strait is open as long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission or we will blow you up, and you pay us.' That is not opening the strait; it is an international waterway," Foreign Minister Rubio explained, launching Al Arabiya (28/4).
"They cannot normalize, and we also cannot tolerate their attempts to normalize, a system where Iran decides who has the right to use international waterways, and how much you have to pay them to use them," he said in an interview with Fox News.
Foreign Minister Rubio deplored the fact that hardliners "with an apocalyptic vision of the future" have the highest power in Iran.
He added that the status of the new Supreme Leader of Iran (Mojtaba Khamenei), the son of the previous leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), is still unclear.
"Now we have a supreme leader whose credibility is still untested, whose access is questionable, who has not been seen in public and has not spoken. We have not heard his voice," he said.
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