ISTANBUL: US President Donald Trump said Washington quietly moved at least 87 oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz under the cover of darkness while Iranian forces remained unaware of the operations, Anadolu Ajansi reported.
"We'd leave at 1 o'clock in the morning, all lights off, and we'd have our navy destroyers going alongside," Trump told Axios in an interview aired Friday (June 19).
Trump said the operations were possible because the US military had "knocked out" Iran's radar and defensive systems earlier in the conflict.
For more than a month, he said, "nobody knew" where the oil being transported through the waterway originated.
The remarks come after weeks of disruption to global energy markets following the US-Israeli attacks on Iran that began Feb. 28.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth recently said that "Project Freedom" had successfully escorted 125 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
Separately, speaking to US Air Force service members ahead of his departure from Joint Base Andrews, Trump said the ships are flowing out of the Hormuz Strait "like nobody has ever seen before."
"There were a lot of about 700 of them, and they're pouring out. The oil is all over the place," said Trump.
The president reiterated that the United States has "the greatest military anywhere in the world."
Turning to the Memorandum of Understanding signed with Iran, Trump said Iran has 60 days to reach a final agreement.
"We have an agreement that was signed last night. Sixty days -- they have to make a deal; otherwise, we will do things that won't make them happy. I don't think it's going to get to that... If we do that, then all of a sudden, you're not going to have the oil flowing out of the strait," he said.
On Wednesday (June 17), Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian electronically signed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding aimed at ending the war between the US, Israel and Iran and halting Israeli attacks on Lebanon. – Bernama
