Tehran, Iran – Iran and the United States have offered clashing narratives over the fate of ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz as they continue to trade threats, even as they maintain contact through mediators.Iranian state media on Saturday released the latest statement attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen or heard from since being selected as the new supreme leader by a clerical body in March.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list“We pledge to avenge your pure blood, and the blood of all the martyrs of these two wars, upon the criminal and disgraced killers. This revenge is the demand of our nation, and it must certainly be carried out,” Khamenei said about his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated on the first day of the war launched by the US and Israel on February 28.He emphasised that this was state policy and did not hinge on any single official. “Soon, individuals among the free people of the world will each carry out a part of this divine mission,” he said. Thousands of mourners gather for the burial of Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad on July 9 [Majid Saeedi/Getty Images]Khamenei’s comments echoed calls for vengeance by hardline religious-backed factions during this week’s funeral ceremonies for Ali Khamenei.In Mashhad, where Ali Khamenei was buried on Friday, chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and other officials in favour of talks with the US sat in attendance as crowds shouted, “Negotiations with the enemy is betraying the homeland”. In an animated televised speech, Ali Khomeini, a grandson of Ruhollah Khomeini, who established the Islamic Republic after a 1979 revolution, said that “anyone who wishes to negotiate to reach pe …
