Iran Revolutionary Guard Says Strait of Hormuz Operational Zone Has Expanded 10-Fold to 480 Kilometers

IRGC says Strait of Hormuz has expanded 10-fold from its prewar scope

Waterway now spans 320 to 480 kilometers as a broad operational zone

Deputy political chief Akbarzadeh says "the perspective has now changed"

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the scope of the Strait of Hormuz has expanded 10-fold from before the war. The claim covers a wider area than the vessel control line the Guard set on May 4.

Mohammad Akbarzadeh, deputy political chief of the IRGC Navy, told local media on May 12 that before the war, the Strait of Hormuz was seen as a limited area around a handful of islands, including Hormuz Island, but that “the perspective has now changed.”

What had been a narrow sea lane has widened into a broad operational zone. Its width has expanded from 20 to 30 miles (32 to 48 kilometers) to 200 to 300 miles (320 to 480 kilometers), he said. He described the strait as a fan-shaped arc of water stretching from Jask Port in the Gulf of Oman to Siri Island in the Gulf. Siri Island lies about 190 kilometers west of the tip of Khasab on Oman’s Musandam Peninsula, where the Strait of Hormuz is at its narrowest.

Iran is closely and forcefully monitoring developments in that zone, Akbarzadeh said, adding that the military would use all its strength to defend the country’s territorial and maritime sovereignty.

The area Akbarzadeh described is broader than the vessel control line the IRGC set on May 4. At the time, the Guard defined the western boundary as a line connecting the western end of Qeshm Island with Umm Al Quwain in the United Arab Emirates. This time, it said the boundary extends farther west to Siri Island. For the eastern boundary, the Guard again pointed to Jask Port, about 50 kilometers southeast of Mount Mobarak in southeastern Iran, as announced on May 4.

Park Su-bin, Hankyung.com reporter waterbean@hankyung.com