Dubai: US President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States is “reinstating” a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and will charge ships for safe passage, after another heavy exchange of fire threatened negotiations aimed at ending the war.
He said on social media that Iranian ships will no longer be able to travel through the strait and America would charge a 20 per cent toll on eligible cargo, as the conflict with Iran has intensified after peace talks failed to deliver meaningful progress.
“We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving,” Trump said online. “All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait.”
The president said the toll would help cover “any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World.”
A fifth of the world’s oil and gas passed through the strait before Iran asserted control over it after the start of the war.
The latest exchange of fire was sparked by an Iranian attack on a container ship Sunday in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has asserted control over the critical waterway for international oil and gas since the United States and Israel started the war February 28.
Iran says it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees in accordance with an interim peace deal reached last month. The US and others dispute that, citing international law on freedom of navigation, and the American military has tried to establish an alternative route outside of Iranian control.
Iran and the US are nearly halfway through the 60-day period in which they were supposed to negotiate a permanent end to the war and an agreement on Iran’s disputed nuclear program. Instead, a series of attacks over the strait have raised fears of a return to all-out war and further disruption to the global economy.
Oil prices jumped nearly 5 per cent Monday before falling back. US benchmark crude, which had risen to nearly USD 120 a barrel at the height of the war, was trading at around USD 72.92. Markets were mixed.
The US says it has struck dozens of targets in Iran
The US military said it struck dozens of sites in the strikes Monday, including air defence systems, radar sites, missile and drone equipment, and small boats. It said Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, called for the strait to be open, as it was before the war. “Freedom of navigation has to be respected,” she said.
Mohammed Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, wrote that Tehran would fight for the strait.
“We defend it so that in the future, for the passage of our ships, we are not forced to pay tribute to the enemy!” he wrote on X. “Retreating from this vital matter has no place in the mind of any friend of Iran.”
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a key power centre in the country’s theocracy that controls its ballistic missile arsenal, said the Strait of Hormuz is “our territory, and we will not allow a rogue and child-killing army from the other side of the world to continue its illegal interference in it.”
US-allied Arab states report another wave of attacks
Missile alert sirens sounded three times Monday in Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, and Kuwait said it was intercepting hostile fire. There was no immediate word on damage in either country.
In Jordan, the kingdom’s military said it shot down four Iranian missiles in an incident that “resulted in zero casualties or material damage.” Jordan also hosts US military forces and aircraft.
In Iran, authorities reported attacks in Hormozgan, Khuzestan and Markazi provinces and said at least two people were killed, according to state-run IRNA news agency. Semiofficial Iranian media also reported strikes in the eastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, which is on the coast of the Gulf of Oman.
The attacks continued hours after the US ended its strikes – again raising the possibility of Gulf Arab states retaliating against Iran. There were unclaimed attacks on Iran Thursday.
A base belonging to the armed wing of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group based in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region came under drone attack on Monday, according to Rebaz Sharifi, a local commander. There were no immediate details on casualties or damage.
No group immediately claimed responsibility. Iran supports a number of powerful militias in Iraq.
Fighting focuses on the status of the Strait
Early Sunday, the US military said it hit some 140 targets, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps and communication equipment – a far-heavier set of attacks than in two previous rounds of strikes in the last week.
Iran retaliated by attacking nations in the region hosting US military forces.
Sunday’s attacks stretched to Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and even Oman, which shares the strait with Iran. Oman, which has long been an interlocutor between Tehran and the West, summoned an Iranian diplomat to criticise the attack.
Iran’s chokehold on the strait has loosened as the US military supports vessels moving along a southern route hugging the coastline of Oman. That new route has angered Iran, which has launched repeated attacks on ships using it.
Traffic through the Oman route dropped over the weekend to minimal levels, indicating that operators continue to prioritise perceived security over more direct transit options,” the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic.com said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei blamed Washington for the chaos gripping the region.
“Considering the memorandum of understanding’s fourteen clauses, the Americans have, in this brief period, in one way or another, slaughtered its various components,” Baghaei told journalists Monday.
Baghaei also said Iran wouldn’t agree to visits by the International Atomic Energy Agency to nuclear sites the US bombed in 2025, where Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to be entombed.
Trump suggested last week that the interim deal in the war was “over.” But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have continued efforts to reach a final agreement to end the war.
A regional official involved in mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks, said efforts to shore up the ceasefire continued Sunday. Pakistan said its foreign minister spoke by phone with Iran’s top diplomat and urged “de-escalation” on both sides.
