Dubai: The leader of Iran’s joint military command threatened Wednesday to halt trade in the Gulf region if the US does not lift its blockade of Iranian ports. Even so, US President Donald Trump said the war in Iran was very close to over in an interview that aired Wednesday.
Separately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that the US is preparing to ramp up economic pain on Iran by levying secondary sanctions on financial institutions that do business with the Middle Eastern nation. Bessent called the measure the financial equivalent of the bombing campaign.
Mediators’ efforts to extend a US-Iran ceasefire made progress as the two sides are expected to hold another round of negotiations, regional officials said. But a senior US official said Washington has not formally agreed to extend the ceasefire. A Pakistani delegation arrived for talks in Tehran in the latest diplomatic move.
Israel, meanwhile, is pressing ahead with its aerial and ground war against the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, a day after the two nations held their first direct talks in decades.
Trump says leaders of Lebanon and Israel to speak
Trump wrote late Wednesday on Truth Social that leaders from Israel and Lebanon would speak the next day in a renewed effort to broker a ceasefire after the countries’ first direct talks in decades ended the previous day in Washington without a deal. It was not clear what leaders Trump was referring to. The Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately respond for comment, which was posted before dawn in Israel and Lebanon.
Chinese foreign minister says reopening of Hormuz is an international demand
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Iranian counterpart that reopening the Strait of Hormuz was a unanimous demand from the international community.
Wang Yi told Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in a phone call that Iran’s sovereignty, security, and legitimate rights should be respected as a littoral state of the Strait of Hormuz, but freedom of navigation and safety through the strait should be ensured.
Working to resume normal passage of the strait is a unanimous call from the international community, Wang was quoted as saying in a government statement late Wednesday.
Wang noted that the current situation had reached a critical juncture between war and peace and also said that the window of peace was opening.
Consecutive Israeli strikes kill 4 Lebanese medics
Paramedic groups say a fourth Lebanese rescue worker has died after three consecutive, targeted strikes by the Israeli military Wednesday that also wounded six others.
The back-to-back Israeli attacks on the southern village of Mayfadoun, near the bigger town of Nabatiyeh, hit the first group of medics responding to a distress call from wounded civilians, a second group trying to assist their wounded colleagues and a third group rushing to aid the first two teams that had been targeted.
The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment on the strikes beyond saying it was looking into what happened. It has previously accused the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group of using ambulances as cover for militant activities, without offering evidence.
