Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has broken weeks of public silence with a sharply defiant statement vowing to protect the country's nuclear and missile programmes, declaring the United States has suffered a "disgraceful defeat" in the region and warning that foreigners have no place in the Persian Gulf — except "at the bottom of its waters." The statement, read by a state television anchor on Thursday to mark Iran's annual Persian Gulf Day, signals that Tehran has no intention of trading away its strategic capabilities as part of any ceasefire deal.

Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since being appointed supreme leader on 9 March following the killing of his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the opening airstrikes of the US-Israeli military campaign on 28 February, framed Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which roughly one-fifth of global oil normally transits — as a matter of sovereign right and regional benefit. "Ninety million proud and honorable Iranians regard all of Iran's capacities — from nanotechnology and biotechnology to nuclear and missile capabilities — as national assets, and will protect them just as they protect the country's waters, land and airspace," he said. He hailed what he described as Iran's "new legal framework and management" of the strait as bringing "comfort and progress" for all regional nations, while dismissing US and allied criticism that Iran's charges of reportedly $2 million per vessel amount to piracy.

The statement lands at a moment of acute economic and diplomatic pressure on both sides. Since 13 April, the US Navy has maintained a blockade of Iranian ports to cut off Tehran's oil revenues, while Iran has allowed only a trickle of ships through the strait — sometimes as few as three vessels a day, compared with the 120–140 that normally pass in peacetime. Brent crude oil traded as high as $126 a barrel on Thursday, a level not seen since the early weeks of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, squeezing consumers and putting political pressure on the Trump administration ahead of midterm elections. Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said the US blockade was "doomed to fail," while Navy Commander Shahram Irani signalled that Iran would deploy newly developed naval weaponry "in the very near future."

With Pakistan-mediated indirect talks between Washington and Tehran at an impasse, the Trump administration is weighing a new proposal that would keep the US blockade on Iranian ports in place while coordinating with allies to raise the costs of Iran's strait restrictions and push other nations to help reopen the waterway. Pakistan's foreign ministry said Islamabad would also welcome direct communication between the two sides, noting that "real-time conversations could ease the sticking points." US Secretary of State Marco Rubio separately held talks with UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on the crisis, and Washington is reportedly exploring reviving and expanding a 12-nation International Maritime Security Construct to oversee the strait once tensions subside.

Khamenei's remarks make clear that Tehran will not accept any deal in which nuclear and missile capabilities are used as bargaining chips — a core US demand. Iran has proposed that nuclear negotiations be deferred while both sides first agree terms for resuming normal shipping. Gulf Arab states, led by the United Arab Emirates, continue to decry Iran's control of the strait as illegal under international law, which treats it as an open international waterway. With oil prices surging, diplomatic channels strained, and both blockades entrenched, the standoff in the Persian Gulf shows little sign of imminent resolution.