Geneva: Iran announced the temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz Tuesday for live fire military drills in a rare show of force as its negotiators held another round of indirect talks with the United States in Geneva over its disputed nuclear programme.
It was the first time Iran has announced the closure of the key international waterway, through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes, since the US began threatening Iran and rushing military assets to the region.
It marks a further escalation in a weeklong standoff that could ignite another war in the Middle East.
As the talks began, Iran’s state media announced that it had fired live missiles toward the Strait and would close it for several hours for “safety and maritime concerns.”
The semiofficial Tasnim news agency, which is close to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, said missiles launched inside Iran and along its coast had struck their targets in the Strait.
Iranian state TV later said the talks had wrapped up after almost three hours.
Another round of indirect talks
Iranian state TV had reported earlier that the negotiations would be indirect and would focus only on Iran’s nuclear programme and not domestic policies, including its bloody crackdown on protests last month.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to agree to constrain its nuclear programme. Iran has said it would respond with an attack of its own. Trump has also threatened Iran over the killing of protesters.
The first round of talks February 6 was held in Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, and was indirect. The latest were held inside the residence of the Omani envoy to Geneva, with the two sides apparently meeting separately with mediators.
Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were travelling for the new round of talks.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is leading the talks for Iran, met with the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency Monday in Geneva.
“I am in Geneva with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal,” Araghchi wrote on X. “What is not on the table: submission before threats.”
A diplomat close to the UN nuclear watchdog confirmed that director general Rafael Grossi was also in Geneva to provide technical advice to both parties when requested. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Talking to reporters Monday night aboard Air Force One on his way to Washington, US President Donald Trump said he planned to be involved in the talks, at least indirectly. “I think they want to make a deal. I don’t think they want the consequences of not making a deal,” he said.
The US is also hosting talks between envoys from Russia and Ukraine in Geneva Tuesday and Wednesday, days ahead of the fourth anniversary of the all-out Russian invasion of its neighbour.
Iran fires missiles into Strait of Hormuz in drill
Iran said its Revolutionary Guard started a drill early Monday in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, which are crucial international shipping routes. It was the second time in recent weeks that Iran has held a live-fire drill in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stepped up his warnings to the US over its buildup of military forces in the Middle East.
“Of course a warship is a dangerous apparatus, but more dangerous than the warship is the weapon that can sink the warship into the depths of the sea,” Khamenei said, according to Iranian state TV.
He also warned the US that “forcing the result of talks in advance is a wrong and foolish job.”
US increases military presence
Last week, Trump said the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, was being sent from the Caribbean Sea to the Mideast to join other warships and military assets the US has built up in the region.
The Ford will join the USS Abraham Lincoln and its accompanying guided-missile destroyers, which have been in the region for over two weeks. US forces shot down an Iranian drone that approached the Lincoln on the same day last week that Iran tried to stop a US-flagged ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
Gulf Arab nations have warned that any attack could spiral into another regional conflict in a Mideast still reeling from the Israel-Hamas war.
The Trump administration is seeking a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear programme and ensure it does not develop nuclear weapons. Iran says it is not pursuing weapons and has so far resisted demands that it halt uranium enrichment on its soil or hand over its stockpile of highly-enriched uranium.
The US and Iran were in the middle of months of meetings when Israel’s launch of a 12-day war against Iran back in June halted the talks. The US bombed Iranian nuclear sites during that war, likely destroying many of the centrifuges that spun uranium to near weapons-grade purity. Israel’s attacks decimated Iran’s air defences and targeted its ballistic missile arsenal as well.
Iran has insisted its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. Before the June war, Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60 per cent purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels.
Iran marks 40 days since deadliest part of protest crackdowns
Iran is marking 40 days, the traditional Muslim mourning period, since one of the deadliest days in the crackdown on protests that swept the country last month. Activists say at least 7,015 people have been killed, many in a bloody crackdown overnight between January 8 and 9.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which offered the latest figures, has been accurate in counting deaths during previous rounds of unrest in Iran and relies on a network of activists in the country to verify deaths.
The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll, given authorities have disrupted internet access and international calls in Iran.
Iran’s state news agency said the government would hold a memorial marking 40 days at the Grand Mosalla mosque in Tehran, and blamed the demonstrations on “violent actions by armed groups allegedly directed by foreign intelligence agencies.
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