Top updates: Trump says US will blockade Strait of Hormuz as Iran talks fail

United States President Donald Trump on Sunday said that the US Navy will blockade ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz.

“Other countries will be involved with this blockade,” he claimed on social media, adding that Iran “will not be allowed to profit off this illegal act of extortion”.

Trump said that he has instructed the US Navy to “seek and interdict every vessel in international waters that has paid a toll” to Tehran. “No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” he said.

He added that the US “will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid” in the strategic waterway. “Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be blown to hell!” Trump said.

Trump’s remarks came hours after the US’ peace talks with Iran in Pakistani capital Islamabad concluded without an agreement to end the war in West Asia.

Washington and Tehran had on Wednesday agreed to a two-week ceasefire to allow further negotiations to end the conflict. While Israel, which was not involved in the talks, has not struck Iran since the ceasefire took effect, it has continued to attack Lebanon.

Here are more top updates from the conflict in West Asia:

• The Strait of Hormuz blockade: In a social media post on Sunday, Trump said that at some point, “we will reach an ‘all being allowed to go in, all being allowed to go out’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, ‘there may be a mine out there somewhere’, that nobody knows about but them”. This is “world extortion” and global leaders, especially the US, will never be extorted, Trump added.
• “They want money and, more importantly, they want nuclear,” Trump said. “Additionally and, at an appropriate moment, we are fully ‘locked and loaded’, and our military will finish up the little that is left of Iran!”
• Trump said that Iran had promised to open the Strait of Hormuz, but “knowingly failed to do so”. This had caused anxiety and pain to countries across the world, he said. “As they promised, they better begin the process of getting this international waterway open and fast!” Trump said, adding that Iran was violating “every law in the book”.
• Trump told Fox News that members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization “want to help with the strait”. It was unclear which member nations he was referring to.
• Peace talks collapse: Earlier on Sunday, US Vice President JD Vance said that 21 hours of peace talks between the US and Iran ended without an agreement. “They have chosen not to accept our terms,” Vance said at a press briefing.
• Iran said that “unreasonable demands” by the US had derailed the talks, the country’s state broadcaster IRIB reported.
• On Sunday, Trump said on social media that the talks “went well” and most points had been agreed to, adding that the “only point that really mattered, nuclear, was not”.
• Trump said that Iran was unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions. “In many ways, the points that were agreed to are better than us continuing our military operations to conclusion, but all of those points don’t matter compared to allowing nuclear power to be in the hands of such volatile, difficult, unpredictable people,” Trump said.
• Blame game: At a press briefing on Sunday, the US vice president said that Washington had been “quite flexible” and “quite accommodating” in the negotiations. “But again, we just could not get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms,” he said. “We leave here with a very simple proposal: a method of understanding that is our final and best offer…We’ll see if the Iranians accept it.”
• Vance added that the US needed “an affirmative commitment” from Iran that it would not “seek a nuclear weapon” and the “tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon”. “Their nuclear programme, such as it is – the enrichment facilities that they had before – they’ve been destroyed,” he added.
• However, he said that Washington had not yet seen a “fundamental commitment of will for the Iranians not to develop a nuclear weapon, not just now, not just two years from now, but for the long-term”. “We hope that we will,” Vance added, before the US delegation left Pakistan.
• Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said that the country’s delegation “negotiated continuously and intensively” to protect the country’s national interests. It added that “various issues, including the Strait of Hormuz, nuclear rights…have been among the points of contention”.
• The state broadcaster added that “despite various initiatives from the Iranian delegation, the unreasonable demands of the American side prevented the progress of the negotiations…Thus the negotiations ended”.
• Mine-clearing: On Saturday, the US military’s Central Command said that two of its warships transited the Strait of Hormuz “as part of a broader mission to ensure the strait is fully clear of sea mines previously laid” by Iran.
• The US military had said that it had begun “establishing a new passage and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon to encourage the free flow of commerce”, it added. However, Iranian state media claimed that the two US ships turned back after being warned by the Iranian forces.

The war

The US and Israel launched an attack on Iran on February 28, claiming that Tehran’s action posed an existential threat to Israel. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Iran retaliated by striking Israel and US military bases in the region and targeting major cities in Gulf countries.

Tehran also effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterbody connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea, for most international commercial vessels, triggering a global energy crisis. About 20% of global petroleum supply passes through the maritime chokepoint.

Iran and the US reached a two-week ceasefire agreement on Wednesday, allowing for further negotiations to end the war.

Israel has been claiming that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance. Tehran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

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