Speaking in a televised interview on Wednesday, Mohsen Rezaei, a member of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council and a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), stressed the need to increase pressure on Iran’s adversaries, News.Az reports, citing Iran's English-language Press TV.
“Pressure must increase. Our launchers are now locked on the warships, and we will sink them all,” he said.
Referring to US efforts to impose a naval blockade on Iran, he said the plan would fail.
“Just as the United States suffered a historic defeat in trying to open the Strait of Hormuz, it is also doomed to fail in the naval blockade,” Rezaei said.
He added that the Iranian Armed Forces would not allow the US to succeed in enforcing a blockade and that Iran possessed what he described as “major untapped leverage” to counter it.
The senior Iranian official said the US has no plan to end what he described as a war it jointly waged with Israel against the Islamic Republic in late February.
“In their latest plan, they intended to deploy paratroopers in Isfahan and seize our uranium to fabricate an achievement for themselves,” he added.
Elsewhere in the interview, Rezaei said extending the ceasefire would not be in Iran’s interest.
“Only when all agreements and our rights are fulfilled and a resolution is submitted to the UN Security Council will a ceasefire be meaningful,” he said.
He cited what he described as “moral and humanitarian” considerations towards other nations as one of the reasons Iran had agreed to a temporary ceasefire.
Referring to the possibility of further talks with the United States, he stressed the need for precision in any future negotiations.
“We must be sensitive to every single word,” Rezaei said.
He concluded with two possible scenarios, saying either the US would stop and accept Iran’s 10 conditions — which he considered unlikely — or it would press ahead with what he described as its “desperate efforts” to win the war.
