Iran’s Supreme Leader said that Tehran would secure the Gulf region and eliminate what he called “the enemy’s ​abuses ​of ⁠the waterway.”

Mojtaba Khamenei added that the new management for the Strait of Hormuz would bring “calm, progress and economic benefits” for all the Gulf countries.

In an apparent dig at US President Donald Trump, Khamenei asserted that Iran will closely guard its missile and nuclear capabilities. Iranians view the country’s nuclear and missile capabilities “as their national capital and will guard them like water, land and air borders,” Khamenei stated, Al Jazeera reported.

Today is Persian Gulf Day in Iran, marking our ancestors’ expulsion of Portuguese from Strait of Hormuz 400 years ago.

POTUS uses the correct term “Persian Gulf”, not the Pentagon’s fake version. But calling Hormuz anything else is indeed a “terrible mistake”. pic.twitter.com/KcGwj83W2B

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) April 30, 2026

This comes as oil prices soared to its highest level since the war broke out in West Asia between US-Israel and Iran with Brent Crude, the international benchmark, touching $126 per barrel on Thursday while Tehran maintained its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway, responsible for 20 percent of global crude oil and natural gas passage.

The US Navy’s blockade of Iranian ports continues which is designed to prevent the Islamic nation from selling its oil, in order to deprive the country from accumulating the crucial revenue. Khamenei has signalled that the Strait of Hormuz will remain shut.

Iran will return to diplomacy ‘once US changes its behaviour’

Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Thursday told Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi that Tehran is ready to resume the path of diplomacy but listed out the condition wherein the Islamic nation wants “Washington to change its behaviour.”

Taking a potshot at President Trump, Araghchi earlier posted on X, “POTUS uses the correct term “Persian Gulf”, not the Pentagon’s fake version. But calling Hormuz anything else is indeed a “terrible mistake”.”