Iran announces alternative routes in Strait of Hormuz

TEHRAN, April 9 (Xinhua) — Iran on Thursday announced two alternative routes for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, citing risks from sea mines in parts of the vital waterway.

“All vessels intending to transit the Strait of Hormuz are advised to take alternative routes to ensure maritime safety and avoid potential sea mine hazards,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement carried by local media.

The move comes as Iran has agreed to temporarily reopen the strait — a key oil shipping lane that typically handles one-fifth of global crude — as part of a two-week truce.

XINHUA

Xinhua News Agency, founded on November 7, 1931, is China’s national news agency as well as a global news and information network. Xinhua has set up a global news and information gathering network, with headquarters in Beijing, 33 domestic bureaus in provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities plus the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, as well as 140 bureaus in the rest of the world. Xinhua is yet to set up a bureau in Taiwan, where it has posted resident correspondents. Xinhua provides its worldwide subscribers with news and financial information products in the forms of text, photo, graphics, audio, video, and mobile phone text messages 24 hours a day in eight languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Japanese.