US-Iran talks uncertain, Trump extends truce
The next steps to resume US-Iran talks remained unclear on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump announced the United States was extending its ceasefire in the war at Pakistan’s request while awaiting a “unified proposal” from Tehran.
Iran has not yet responded to Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire extension, and both countries have warned they were prepared to resume fighting if a deal isn’t reached.
Trump said on Tuesday night in a social media post that “Iran doesn’t want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open” so they can sell their crude oil, after earlier saying that the US military would maintain its blockade of Iranian ports.
Trading fire
Meanwhile, Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon traded some fire on Tuesday, despite expected talks in Washington this week after a 10-day ceasefire went into effect last Friday.
Since the war started, fighting has killed at least 3,375 people in Iran and more than 2,290 in Lebanon. Additionally, 23 people have died in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states.
Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and 13 US service members throughout the region have been killed.
Raising the stakes
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard opened fire on Wednesday on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz, damaging the ship and further raising the stakes as planned ceasefire talks in Pakistan failed to materialize.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center said the attack happened around 7:55 a.m. in the strait and targeted a container ship.
The UKMTO said a Guard gunboat did not hail the ship before firing.
It said no one was hurt and there was no environmental impact from the attack.
Iran’s semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies, believed to be close to the Guard, both reported on the attack, citing the UKMTO.
Fars went further to describe Iran as “lawfully enforcing” its control over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20 percent of the world’s crude oil and natural gas traded once passed.
However, the strait had been considered an international waterway for the world’s shippers despite being in the territorial waters of both Iran and Oman.
The attack comes after the US military seized an Iranian container ship after shooting it this past weekend, and after it boarded an oil tanker associated with Iran’s oil trade in the Indian Ocean.
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