The Obama administration is using a back channel to warn Iran's supreme leader that closing the Strait of Hormuz would be crossing a “red line” and that the U.S. would respond accordingly, according to U.S. officials cited by The New York Times.
Senior administration officials such as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey have warned publicly that the move to close the major oil shipping route would be unacceptable but the warning delivered via the secret communications channel to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneni is meant to “underscore privately to Iran the depth of American concern,” the Times reports.
Amid rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, Iran threatened to close the strait, a crucial passageway through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil flows daily.
Dempsey said on Sunday that if Iran blocked the passageway, the U.S. military “will take action and reopen the strait.”
U.S. officials would not describe the contact between the two governments and could not say whether there has been a reply from Iran, according to the Times report.
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