Tehran, April 27 (IANS) A senior Iranian lawmaker said on Monday the general staff of Iran’s armed forces should be the authority responsible for taking action in the Strait of Hormuz in the draft of a parliamentary plan to ensure security in the waterway.
Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, made the remarks in an interview with state-run IRIB TV while elaborating on the articles of the finalised draft of the “Strategic Action Plan to Ensure Security and Progress in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf,” which is set to be voted on by the legislative body.
Azizi said the plan comprises almost 11 articles and seeks to restrict passage by hostile vessels through the strait, reported Xinhua news agency.
“Under the plan, it has been predicted that the financial proceeds obtained from the strait should be in Iran’s currency, the rial,” he said.
He said all those establishments, governments and countries that have inflicted losses and damages on Iran, blocked Iranian assets or taken hostile actions against the country over the past years must pay compensation.
Azizi said the Iranian armed forces are already fully and smartly controlling the strait based on the orders they have received from higher echelons of power within the Iranian establishment, underlining that the parliamentary plan has been drafted based on the measures proposed by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has stressed that a new management must be exercised over the strait.
In separate remarks, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a member of the same parliamentary committee, said the plan will be passed into law immediately after the reopening of the Iranian parliament, and the law will be submitted to the administration for enforcement, according to IRIB.
Boroujerdi said the Central Bank of Iran has opened four special accounts based on the rial, the yuan, the dollar and the euro, in which the tolls received by the Navy of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps from vessels crossing the strait will be deposited as per the directives.
–IANS
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