15:56
Iran and US declare Strait of Hormuz “completely open,” but Iran adds that passage is on a “coordinated route” set by Tehran.
Iranian foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi announced in a post on X on Friday that maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is “declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire.”
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Moments later, US president Donald Trump announced in a social media post that “Iran has just announced that the Strait of Hormuz is fully open and ready for full passage.”
“THANK YOU!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
President Trump followed up his first announcement by saying that that the US Navy’s blockade on Iranian ships and ports would remain in force “UNTIL SUCH TIME AS OUR TRANSACTION WITH IRAN IS 100% COMPLETE.”
“THIS PROCESS SHOULD GO VERY QUICKLY IN THAT MOST OF THE POINTS ARE ALREADY NEGOTIATED,” Trump added.
The two announcements signal a positive resolution of the Hormuz crisis as part of a new momentum towards a possible second round of US-Iran talks mediated by Pakistan.
However, the Iranian foreign minister’s post said that passage is “on the coordinated route as already announced by Ports and Maritime Organisation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Araghchi’s message appears to indicate a possible Iranian leverage, that Iran may still want to control the traffic as until now, despite the US blockade.
Traffic through the waterway, through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas supplies transited before the war, has been almost completely blocked since the Iran war started with US-Israeli air strikes on 28 February.
The current two-week ceasefire expires on 22 April, but Trump has already indicated he would be willing to extend it due to positive progress made towards a resolution.
The US launched its own naval blockade of Iranian ports came into effect on Monday, with President Donald Trump warning that any attack ships would be “eliminated” if they attempted to break it.
“Iran’s navy is laying at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated – 158 ships. What we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, ‘fast attack ships,’ because we did not consider them much of a threat,” Trump wrote in a post on his platform Truth Social.
That has sent energy prices spiking around the world, with the International Energy Agency chief warning on Thursday that Europe only has “maybe six weeks or so of jet fuel left,” if supplies remain blocked.
Oil prices fell immediately by more than 10% and Wall Street has rallied towards another record after the announcements.
Stocks have rallied more than 11% since late March on hopes that the United States and Iran can avoid a worst-case scenario for the global economy.
