DOHA, June 25 /TASS/. The United States regards the Strait of Hormuz as an international waterway and considers any attempt by Iran to charge vessels for passage through it unacceptable, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
"The Strait of Hormuz is international waters. International waterways do not belong to any nation state. This is a foundational principle in the world today, without which the world would be in total chaos," Rubio said during a meeting with the foreign ministers of the Gulf states in Bahrain.
"If, in fact, we accepted that you can charge money to use an international waterway because it happens to be near your territorial space – well, then this will spread throughout the world like a contagion," he added.
"You can call it a toll, you can call it a fee, whatever you want to call it. It's a game of semantics. The reality of it is that no country on Earth has a right to charge for the use of international waterways, and that will never be an acceptable condition of any deal," Rubio noted.