Tehran: A senior Iranian legislator mocked Donald Trump on Sunday over the US president’s threat to seize the Strait of Hormuz, urging him to focus on his own safety instead of issuing what he termed “endless bluffs” and recalling accounts that Trump was hurriedly moved in a catering truck while exiting Turkey last month after a credible Iranian assassination plot surfaced.
Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, posted the comments on social media a day after Trump said the US Navy was enforcing a complete blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and hinted Washington could claim the strait as US territory after defeating Iran.
“The US President ought to worry about his own security rather than his endless bluffing regarding the Strait of Hormuz; before he ends up hiding in a food truck,” Ebrahim Azizi wrote on X.
Azizi’s “food truck” taunt referred to a reported security manoeuvre during Trump’s exit from Ankara following the NATO summit last month. Trump had arrived in Turkey on a Qatar-donated Boeing 747-8 and was seen boarding the aircraft.
However, according to a Washington Post report, Trump was later shifted to a smaller C-32A military plane after being ferried across the tarmac in a catering truck.
The larger jet reportedly acted as a decoy, with journalists and members of the press and some White House aides initially assumed the president was on the plane.
Trump later confirmed he had been moved off Air Force One in Ankara after the Secret Service and US military advised him to switch aircraft, though specifics of the alleged Iranian threat have not been publicly detailed, as reported by India Today.
‘Pretty Soon I’ll Be Declaring It US Territory’
Speaking in New York a day earlier, Trump said he plans to designate the Strait of Hormuz a “territory” of the United States, even as tensions between Washington and Tehran keep rising.
Trump told supporters the US would soon lay claim to the strategically crucial waterway, through which a substantial portion of the world’s oil, natural gas and fertiliser shipments pass.
“Once we have completely defeated Iran, I will soon declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory,” Trump said, while asserting the US Navy was maintaining a full blockade of the strait.
The remarks provoked a sharp rebuttal from Iran, with Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi dismissing any notion that the waterway could be brought under US control.
The Strait of Hormuz, which divides Iran from the Arabian Peninsula, is among the world’s most vital energy arteries, carrying a significant share of global seaborne crude oil exports.
Gharibabadi said the strait “cannot be seized by a tweet, an aircraft carrier, an executive order or a campaign speech”, adding that Iran “neither fears threats nor can be intimidated by shows of force.”
Meanwhile, a White House official told American media that Trump’s remarks about claiming the Strait of Hormuz as US territory were made in jest.
