United States President Donald Trump has demanded compensation from Iran for those he claimed were killed by the country after Tehran conditioned the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz on receiving war reparations from Washington.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday that his administration was going to seek payment for “50 years” of damages caused by Iran, framing the move as a direct response to Tehran’s claims.
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Tehran has said it will not open the Strait of Hormuz – through which about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flowed before the US-Israel war on Iran – unless Washington agrees to pay war reparations and end sanctions. The Iranian demands were largely in line with the terms of an interim peace agreement signed in June, which has since broken down over a dispute on control over the strait.
Talks between Iran and Oman over the waterway, which separates the two countries, are ongoing, but Trump’s new demands risk complicating efforts to reopen the maritime passage.
“They asked for reparations, you might say. Or they asked for money for the damage that we’ve done. I said that’s a good idea,” he told reporters. “Well, we’re going to ask for money for the damage they’ve done over a 50-year period.”
The payments would cover deaths among US forces in the region as well as civilian protesters in Iran, he said, claiming that 52,000 people have been killed in Iran in the past four months. Tehran says some 3,117 people died in antigovernment protests that swept the country in January, prior to the launch of the US-Israel war.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) in February reported about 7,000 deaths, including 6,500 protesters.
‘Banter’
Trump also said Tehran should compensate families of the 17 US sailors killed in an October 2000 attack in Yemen on the USS Cole naval vessel, which has been blamed on al-Qaeda, not Iran.
“Also, with respect to the Iran negotiations, Iran should be responsible for the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza!” he wrote in a Truth Social post.
Since the US-Israel war on Iran began on February 28, Trump has repeatedly oscillated between threats of escalation and claims that a peace deal is imminent.
He threatened last week to “hit” Iran “very hard”, only to pull back, hinting a peace deal was near. This weekend, he said he was “low-keying” his approach to the conflict, suggesting that he was prepared to let economic pressure mount in place of further military strikes.
Charles Kupchan, a former special assistant to ex-US President Barack Obama, described Trump’s remarks about requiring compensation as “banter” and said both sides have strong incentives to reach a deal.
“Unfortunately, we are just looking at some back-and-forth banter here, where neither the Iranians nor the Trump administration is being serious,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Iran cannot survive if it won’t be able to export its oil”, he said, and Trump doesn’t want to go into the US midterms with high gas prices. There is also pressure on the Pentagon in light of reports that US munitions stockpiles are low, he added.
Iran-Oman talks on Hormuz
Iran earlier said it was nearing a final pact with Oman defining new shipping lanes between them through the Strait of Hormuz, but repeated that the US must meet its conditions, including an end to military threats.
The strait has been effectively blocked since the war began, pushing up oil prices and inflation.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told state media on Monday that talks with Oman were “progressing smoothly and constructively”, with an agreement reached on a shipping route map, while some technical issues remained unresolved.
Baghaei said the discussions also covered services that would normally involve payment, such as safe navigation, environmental protection, maritime services and combating crime.
He added that the US’s continued “hostile actions” in the Strait of Hormuz have made the passageway unsafe and that Tehran considers Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports an “act of aggression”.
US Central Command said on Monday that it has redirected 55 commercial vessels since reinstating the blockade in July and “disabled” at least two. According to Windward, a maritime intelligence firm, the blockade has resulted in a “complete halt” to Iranian oil exports from Kharg Island, located in the Gulf.
Trump on Monday described the blockade as a “steel wall” and said that “the only one that has control of the Strait of Hormuz right now is the United States Navy”.
He also claimed the waterway was open and that the US military has cleared it of mines.
Shipping data firms, meanwhile, said traffic in the waterway had dropped sharply over the weekend, with MarineTraffic reporting that crossings had gone down from 15 on Friday to 11 on Saturday, and six on Sunday.
The data showed that 17 vessels passed through the Iran-designated route, while 10 others took a route classified as “undetermined”, it said.
