Iran Issues New Warnings After Defying a Deadline

Iran warned Monday that it could easily close a critical Persian Gulf waterway to oil shipments and said that it had a new long-range naval weapon that could sink enemy ships nearly 200 miles away.

The warning, by the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, followed the weekend expiration of an informal deadline for Iran to respond to an offer of incentives from six world powers to stop enriching uranium.

The United States, which has warships deployed in the Persian Gulf, has said new sanctions should be imposed on Iran for failing to respond to the deadline. On Monday, a State Department official said the six powers — the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany — had agreed to pursue new sanctions, but it remained unclear what they might be or which nations would take part.

In comments carried by the semiofficial Iranian news agency, Fars, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of the Revolutionary Guards, said Iran was capable of imposing “unlimited controls” at the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, an important oil route.

“Closing the Strait of Hormuz for an unlimited period of time would be very easy,” he was quoted as saying.

“The Guards have recently tested a naval weapon which I can say with certainty that the enemy’s ships would not be safe within the range of 300 kilometers,” General Jafari was quoted as saying. “Without any doubt we will send them to the depths of the sea.”

General Jafari gave no details about the type of weapon tested, but he said it was Iranian-built and “unique in the world.” NYTimes