Iran appears to be demanding compensation for an oil spill in the Strait of Hormuz that has washed up on Qeshm Island.

Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported Wednesday that the country's Department of Environment said oil was spotted along parts of the island's coastline. Cleanup operations are underway and authorities are investigating the source of the spill.

A mourner displays an image with portraits of Iran's late Supreme Leaders Ruhollah Jomeini (L), Ali Khamenei (R), and new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei (C) during a gathering to commemorate the death of Imam Reza on August 12, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. Contributor / Getty Images / Contributor#072019

In a post on X Wednesday, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei wrote: "Who bears responsibility for compensating these damages? Is it the nations that consume the inexpensive energy exported from our region, the shipping insurers, or the aggressors and their partners who have transformed the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman into a theater for military operations and the testing of highly destructive weaponry?"

"Every party that benefits from commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz carries both a legal and a moral obligation to remediate the environmental harm inflicted upon the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman," he added, saying "preliminary evidence indicates a foreign bulk carrier as the source." 

Baqaei did not go into specifics about how much compensation Iran might insist on or from whom, but did say that degradation in the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman and the local marine ecosystem has imposed "trillions of dollars in damage on Iran's coastal areas" in recent decades.

The head of Iran's Basij paramilitary unit, Hossein Taeb, asserted Thursday that the Strait of Hormuz is "under Iran's control and management," Reuters reported, citing Iran's semi-official Fars news agency.

The remarks came a day after President Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. had "total control" of the vital waterway. 

More than 30 countries, including France, Britain and Canada, have condemned Iran's use of capital punishment, saying in a joint statement that the Islamic republic is executing protesters to "silence dissent."

The countries, joined by the European Union's top diplomat, said they "condemn in the strongest terms the ongoing executions of protesters and use of the death penalty" by Iran.

"The use of capital punishment to silence dissent, intimidate communities, and punish individuals exercising their human rights can never be justified," the statement said. "The people of Iran must be free to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly without fear."

Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Italy, Germany and numerous other European nations were among those calling for Iran "to immediately end the use of the death penalty and release all those arbitrarily detained."

Iran's foreign minister brushed off the criticism, saying, "Countries like France should stop lecturing the world about 'human rights' and international law. The hypocrisy is blatant and embarrassing.

"Your backing of Israel's genocide in Gaza -- and aggression against Iran -- has destroyed whatever moral high ground you imagined you had," Abbas Araghchi posted on X.

The joint statement speaks to growing alarm from the United Nations and rights groups over a surge in executions in recent months, after Iran was rocked by nationwide anti-government protests earlier in the year and the start of the Middle East war in February.

AFP  

Last month's elaborate ruse that saw President Trump secretly move from Air Force One to another plane by way of a catering truck took place within a day of U.S. and Turkish intelligence picking up on an Iranian plot to fire a missile at the presidential jet, CBS News has learned.

The decision to shift Mr. Trump to a different plane was made while the annual NATO conference was underway in Ankara, according to two law enforcement officials and a U.S. official. The president had flown into the Turkish capital on a newly retrofitted Boeing 747 donated by the government of Qatar, but an older white-and-blue jet that has served as Air Force One since the 1990s was also on the ground as a support aircraft.

Ahead of Mr. Trump's July 8 departure from the summit, the National Security Agency, the CIA and Turkey's MIT intelligence service picked up streams of information about a credible plot by Iran to fire a surface-to-air missile at Air Force One, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive matters. 

There were also reports of a team in Turkey tasked with firing the surface-to-air missile at the plane, the U.S. officials said. But after more probes, no team was detected.

As the U.S.-Iran war nears the six-month mark, there is a significant ongoing threat from Iran to kill Mr. Trump, according to the officials. 

Read more here.

Iran is countering President Trump's claim on Wednesday that the Strait of Hormuz is under U.S. control, though Tehran did not refer to the president by name. 

"Claims and repeated posts by U.S. officials that the Strait of Hormuz is no longer blocked do not change the reality: the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked and will not be reopened until Iran's conditions are accepted," the Persian Gulf Strait Authority said in a statement on X.

The authority was the agency set up to manage transit through the strait — and collect a tolls — soon after the war began on Feb. 28.

Traffic in the strait has slowed to a crawl in recent weeks. Tuesday's tally of eight vessels fell below a 10-day average of about 12, for the lowest daily count since Aug. 5, according to Kpler data. 

Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier that the U.S. has "total control over the Strait of Hormuz."

"I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT! Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, 'A WALL OF STEEL,' and there is nothing Iran can do about it," he wrote.