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Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said Tuesday that Gulf countries would no longer serve as a protective shield for U.S. military bases and that Washington would no longer have “a safe haven” in the region.
“The hands of time do not turn back, and the nations and territories of the region will no longer serve as a shield for American bases. America will no longer have a safe haven for evil or for establishing military bases in the region,” Khamenei said on his Telegram channel.
Mojtaba Khamenei assumed Iran’s leadership in March after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes. He has not appeared publicly since taking office.
The remarks came as Tehran and Washington continued discussions on a framework aimed at ending the three-month conflict between Iran and the United States.
Meanwhile, a senior spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces warned Tuesday that any renewed U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran would trigger a stronger response.
“If the region enters another round of war, Iran's response will extend beyond regional borders and will be much heavier and stronger,” Iranian military spokesperson Abolfazl Shekarchi said, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.
Earlier on Tuesday, Fars reported that U.S. and Israeli aircraft struck Iranian vessels south of the Larak Island near the Strait of Hormuz, killing “several Iranian nationals.”
The reported incident came amid Pakistan-led mediation efforts aimed at ending the conflict that began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28 and was followed by Iranian retaliation.
A ceasefire took effect on April 8 and was later extended indefinitely by U.S. President Donald Trump.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that an agreement to end the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran would take “a couple days” to finalize despite progress in negotiations.
“I think there's strong alignment and agreement on what a preliminary draft should look like. I think, like anything with something like this, it's going to take a couple days to settle on, even down to the disagreements over a word, sentence,” Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security adviser, told reporters en route to New Delhi.
“If there's going to be a deal, we're going to have to work through that, but this is, you know, it's either going to be a good deal, or there isn't going to be one,” he added.
Rubio also criticized Iran’s efforts to restrict commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
“There's no country in the world that's in favor of the tolling system, except the regime in Iran. So that's not acceptable. That cannot happen,” Rubio said.
“The straits need to be open, unimpeded, without tolls, and obviously that needs to happen,” he added.
Regional tensions escalated on Feb. 28 when the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran, prompting Tehran to retaliate with waves of drones and missiles targeting sites across the region while closing the Strait of Hormuz.
A ceasefire took effect on April 8 through Pakistani mediation, but subsequent talks in Islamabad failed to produce a lasting agreement.
Trump later extended the truce indefinitely while maintaining restrictions on vessels traveling to and from Iranian ports through the strategic waterway.
Last week, Trump said the agreement had been “largely negotiated” and was awaiting finalization.
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