The Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until Washington accepts Iranian authority over the waterway, Iran's army spokesman said, Jaam-e Jam reported on July 16.

Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia, spokesman for the Artesh, Iran's conventional military which operates alongside the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said strategic control of the strait had become "a public and national demand" following a series of tit-for-tat strikes between Iran, the US and Gulf neighbours hosting US bases. 

Speaking at a ceremony in the northern city of Amol commemorating Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose death in the war Iranian officials describe as martyrdom, Akraminia said US President Donald Trump "must understand and respect" that the strait is "an inseparable part of the geography of greater Iran" inhabited by a people with an ancient history.

He said Trump's declaration that the US would take control of the strait and collect 20% of the value of every cargo ship showed that the US president's "first and last policy has been the pursuit of commerce in the Strait of Hormuz".

The spokesman confirmed the strikes on shipping claimed earlier by the IRGC, saying Washington's declared abrogation of the Islamabad memorandum and its creation of what he called an illegal route in the south of the strait reflected Trump's "arrogant disposition" towards creating insecurity in the Middle East. Iran's armed forces "entered powerfully against this aggression and targeted the violating vessels", he said, and the strait would remain closed until the US accepts "the Iranian legal order" and a governance mechanism based on Iranian will.

Compliance with the memorandum signed in Islamabad, an end to what he called American malice, and the application of Iranian law would be the only route to reopening the waterway, he said.

He added that US strikes on defence and security sites inside Iran could not achieve their aim, and that the armed forces could protect and control the strait "from any point" on Iranian territory.

Akraminia coupled the position with an unusually direct warning to Iran's Arab neighbours. Tehran had no quarrel with neighbouring states, he said, but providing bases to the Americans and permitting fire on Iranian territory from their soil "is not acceptable and will not go unanswered".

Security imported from the US through arms purchases and base hosting "will have no durability", he added.

The spokesman claimed Iranian forces had destroyed all 17 US bases in the region during what Iranian officials call the third imposed war, said Washington had "no strategy for entering or exiting the war", and cited more than 135 consecutive nights of street rallies in support of the system since the conflict began in late February. None of the battlefield claims could be independently verified.

Iran struck US targets in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain as Washington hit sites across Iran overnight in a sixth day of renewed hostilities, officials on both sides said on July 16.

The US military said it completed a six-hour wave of strikes intended to "degrade Iran's ability to threaten innocent mariners" in the Strait of Hormuz, with the US Central Command saying precision munitions hit command centres, air defence sites, missile and drone capabilities and coastal surveillance facilities in multiple locations including Bandar Abbas, Iran's principal port and naval base on the strait.

An earlier 90-minute daytime wave targeted coastal defence systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tunb Island, one of the fortified islands anchoring Iran's defence of the waterway.

The remarks harden Tehran's position after Trump on July 13 declared the strait open "with or without Iran", reinstated a blockade on Iranian shipping and imposed a 20% levy on transiting cargo.