ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran's parliament has begun drafting a bill on the Strait of Hormuz, the head of the security committee said on Tuesday, amid a renewed wave of strikes between Tehran and Washington over the strategic waterway.
Iran's parliament on Tuesday drafted the "Strategic Action for the Security and Sustainable Progress of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf" bill after resuming work on Monday following a five-month suspension.
"Last night, coinciding with the downing of US drones, the bill was formally introduced in Iran's parliament," Ebrahim Azizi, a newly elected lawmaker, wrote on X on Tuesday.
The move comes amid renewed escalations between Iran and the US in which American forces launched a five-hour attack on military targets in southern Iran early Tuesday as Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired missiles and drones at US bases in Jordan and Bahrain on Tuesday morning in addition to targeting two supertankers.
The IRGC on Tuesday claimed US forces had encouraged commercial vessels to transit through what it described as an "illegal route" in the strait and launched attacks against two oil tankers after they ‘ignored warnings’ from Iran's maritime security authorities.
The UAE condemned the attack against two Emirati oil tankers in Omani waters as a violation of international law and called for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened fully and unconditionally.
The UAE ministry spokesperson reported one crew member killed, and eight others injured in addition to material damage.
The Strait of Hormuz, nestled between Iran and Oman, is one of the world's busiest oil transit routes, with around one-fifth of global oil exports passing through its narrow waterway.
The IRGC has repeatedly issued threats that cooperation with "the enemy" could delay the reopening of the waterway and trigger a global energy crisis.
