Iran said it will announce a new restricted zone in the Gulf in the coming days, along with maps of a new shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz, as a weekend exchange of strikes on shipping sent oil prices higher on Monday. The new restricted zone will begin from where the US blockade of Iran begins and extend into areas of the Gulf, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Sunday in an interview with state TV. Few details were provided on the plan, but Rezaei said any ship entering the new zone would be added to a sanctions list, reported Reuters. In addition, maps detailing passage routes for the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy conduit largely closed to tanker traffic, would also be approved soon, Rezaei said. "The maps of a new international corridor which lies in Iranian and Omani waters and in which Iran will have management have been agreed and should be signed in the coming days," he said. "We will only commit to the Strait of Hormuz being open when they (the Americans) stop the sabotage, threats and attacks on Iran," Rezaei added. Six months after US-Israeli strikes on Iran sparked the war, the conflict appears to be at a stalemate. A preliminary ceasefire accord reached in June has unraveled, and little progress has been made in diplomatic efforts to get the peace process back on track. After a pause in military action for much of August, tit-for-tat strikes have resumed. US forces struck three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday, US Central Command said, including one off Kharg Island, Iran's key oil export hub, following attacks by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps on US warships in the region. Tehran has shown it retains the capability to attack US interests in neighboring countries and to shut down oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of global oil supplies flowed prior to the conflict. An average of 10 commodity ships transited the Strait per day in the past 10 days, the lowest since May, according to shipping data on Monday. That helped oil prices extend last week's big gains, with Brent crude up 0.8% above $97 a barrel.
