Washington (United States) (AFP) – US President Donald Trump warned Monday that any Iranian attack boats that approach the naval blockade he has ordered around the country’s ports will be destroyed, despite international calls for a ceasefire to be respected and negotiations to resume. The US military said the blockade would begin at 1400 GMT and apply to all ships leaving or seeking to dock at Iranian harbours, but as the deadline passed there was no announcement that the measure had come into effect, nor sign of any interceptions.
In a social media post, Trump said the bulk of Iran’s navy had already been destroyed during the war, but that if any of what he said were Tehran’s few remaining “fast attack ships” approach the blockade, “they will be immediately ELIMINATED.” Trump announced the blockade on Sunday after a delegation led by Vice President JD Vance returned from a meeting with Iranian officials in Pakistan without having secured a deal to end the war launched on February 28 with deadly US and Israeli strikes on Tehran. Last Wednesday, the US and Iran agreed to a two-week truce to allow the negotiations to go ahead, and mediator Pakistan and Gulf state Qatar were still calling on Monday for it to be respected as diplomatic efforts continue.
“The ceasefire is still holding and, as I speak, full efforts are underway to resolve the outstanding issues,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan told a cabinet meeting. The head of the International Maritime Organization, Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez, said no country could “prohibit the right of innocent passage or the freedom of navigation through international straits that are used for international transit.” Qatari Foreign Minister and Premier Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani urged both sides to guarantee freedom of navigation and refrain from using maritime routes “as a tool for pressure,” encouraging Tehran and Washington to remain in touch with mediators.
Iran had already closed the strait to what it regards as enemy shipping, allowing only vessels serving countries it deems friendly — such as China — to cross. Oil prices, which had tumbled with the truce, jumped around eight percent Monday amid fears the renewed standoff would block more tankers. The US leader’s latest change of tack left some observers perplexed. “Presumably, Trump’s intent is to try to starve Iran of export revenue and compel Iran’s main oil customers, particularly China, to pressure Tehran to end its blockage of the strait,” think tank The Soufan Center said in its daily note.
“The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman,” US Central Command said, adding it would begin at 1400 GMT on Monday. US forces would not impede vessels transiting the strait to and from non-Iranian ports, it added. Nicole Grajewski, an assistant professor at Sciences Po’s Center for International Research, said a US blockade was “not a minor coercive signal” but could rather be considered an effective resumption of the war.
Iran’s military command issued a statement branding the blockade a criminal act of piracy and warned that if the security of its harbours “is threatened, no port in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea will be safe.” China, Washington’s great power rival and a big importer of Iranian oil, also criticised the plan. “The Strait of Hormuz is an important international trade route for goods and energy, and maintaining its security, stability, and unimpeded flow is in the common interest of the international community,” foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said, urging Iran and the US not to reignite the war.
Among Washington’s NATO allies, much criticised by Trump for their reluctance to follow him to war, Spain’s Defence Minister Margarita Robles said the planned naval blockade “makes no sense.” “It’s one more episode in this whole downward spiral into which we’ve been dragged,” she said. And in a BBC radio interview, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain would not join the blockade, adding the UK “is not getting dragged in.” French President Emmanuel Macron said that France and Britain would host a conference with countries prepared to join a “peaceful multinational mission” to secure the strait, but it would be “strictly defensive” and only operational once circumstances permit.
Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Tehran’s delegation in Pakistan, has said Tehran will “not bow to any threats,” while navy chief Shahram Irani has called Trump’s blockade “ridiculous.” The strait was far from the only friction point impeding efforts to end the war. The US delegation in Islamabad — led by Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — was frustrated by Iran’s refusal to give up what it insists is a civilian nuclear programme. Russia has offered to hold Iran’s enriched uranium safely as part of any deal.
“The offer still stands, but has not been acted upon,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Russia has personnel helping run Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant, but Alexei Likhachev, director general of Moscow’s state atomic energy corporation Rosatom, said 108 of them have already been pulled out and only a “final rotation” of 20 remain. The area around the Bushehr facility has been struck at least four times during the war.
© 2024 AFP
