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US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States would not lift its blockade of Iranian ports until Tehran had agreed a peace deal to end the war.
“THE BLOCKADE, which we will not take off until there is a ‘DEAL,’ is absolutely destroying Iran,” Trump said in a post on social media.
“They are losing $500 Million Dollars a day, an unsustainable number, even in the short run.”
Traffic has again seized up in the Strait of Hormuz as both Tehran and Washington impose separate blockades.
Trump’s announcement comes after Iran said earlier it would not be sending a delegation to participate in the second round of high-stakes peace talks in Islamabad that were set to take place on Monday.
That decision came after the US attacked and seized an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel it said had tried to evade its naval blockade near the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday.
Tehran’s joint military command vowed to respond, throwing the fate of a fragile ceasefire into question days before it expires.
The ship was the first to be intercepted by the US Navy since it began blockading Iranian ports last week in response to Tehran’s closure of the strategic waterway since the US-Israeli war on the country broke out on 28 February.
Iran says the armed boarding of the cargo vessel constituted a violation of the fragile truce and an “act of piracy.”
In a post on social media, Trump said a US Navy guided missile destroyer in the Gulf of Oman warned the Iranian-flagged ship, the Touska, to halt and then “stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engine room.”
US Marines had custody of the US-sanctioned vessel and were “seeing what’s on board!”
It was not clear whether anyone was hurt. The US Central Command, which didn’t answer questions, said the destroyer had issued “repeated warnings over a six-hour period.”
The development again sent oil prices spiralling, deepening an already dire global energy price crisis, one of the worst in decades.
Brent crude, the international standard, opened trading at $95 (€80) a barrel early on Monday, a hike from its price, which hovered between $91-92 (€77-78) during the majority of the ceasefire.
The move has heightened uncertainty over the fate of the war, which Trump had claimed repeatedly over the last few days was “close to over,” but now brings his earlier statement on new talks with Iran in Pakistan to question.
Minutes after the ship seizure was announced, Iranian state media reported on President Masoud Pezeshkian’s phone conversation with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif earlier on Sunday.
US actions, including bullying and unreasonable behaviour, have led to increased suspicion that Washington will repeat previous patterns and “betray diplomacy,” the reports cited Pezeshkian as saying.
Additional sources • AP, AFP