The UAE has condemned an Iranian missile attack on one of its oil tankers, operated by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, as the vessel crossed the Strait of Hormuz in the early hours of Saturday. No injuries were reported.
The Foreign Ministry called the strike a "flagrant violation of Security Council Resolution 2817, which stresses the freedom of navigation and rejects the targeting of commercial vessels or disrupting international maritime routes".
It said Iran must "stop these aggressive attacks" and "fully and unconditionally reopen the Strait of Hormuz".
The attack was the 16th on an Adnoc vessel since the war began on February 28, the company said.
Adnoc said that a vessel had been attacked early this morning and that the situation was under control, Wam reported. No details were provided on the tanker, its cargo or possible damage.
Qatar's Foreign Ministry has also condemned the attack, rejecting the use of the strait "as a tool of pressure" and renewing its call for the waterway to be reopened unconditionally.
It demanded that "unjustified Iranian attacks" cease and affirmed Doha's solidarity with the UAE.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world's oil and gas transited before the war, has been mostly closed since Iran mined and militarised the waterway in response to US and Israeli strikes.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Saturday that any reopening of the strait would be conditional on Washington accepting Iran's terms and would mot be "related to the negotiations between Iran and Oman" now under way in Muscat, its spokesman Hossein Mohebbi told Tasnim news agency.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking at a presidential press conference on Saturday, said Tehran was close to an agreement with Oman on a legal framework for the strait but that its reopening remained tied to the US "compensating" for what he said were breaches of the Islamabad understanding between Washington and Tehran.
He added that the previous Traffic Separation Scheme was "no longer acceptable" to Iran and would have to be replaced by a new route, with military-to-military talks under way on an interim arrangement.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking alongside Araghchi, said the US had "breached the Strait of Hormuz clause in the memorandum of understanding, and we responded to them in turn".
