Iran will use the Persian Gulf and the Hormuz Strait to pressure the West after the U.N. Security Council adopted new sanctions against Tehran, Iranian Parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Vice President Hussein Ibrahimi was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.
He added that if every Iranian ship is inspected under the new resolution, then Iran will stop and search all Western ships in the Persian Gulf.
The Hormuz Strait is a strategic link connecting the Oman Gulf in the southeast to the Persian Gulf in the southwest. The strait has a length of 195 kilometers and the narrowest section of the strait is about 54 miles wide. The strait is divided into two transport channels with a width of about 2.5 kilometers each, which are separated by a five-kilometer buffer zone. Today the strait is the only sea route exporting Arab oil and gas to third-party countries, particularly the United States.
According to 2006 data, 33 percent of global oil exports via sea passed through the Hormuz Strait.