Iran denounced U.S. strikes carried out the day before as evidence of bad faith and unreliability while negotiations continued toward a possible deal to end the war. The U.S. described the strikes as defensive, targeting missile launch sites and boats placing mines, and said it acted with restraint due to a ceasefire that had largely held since April 7. Iran’s foreign ministry called the strikes a ceasefire violation and warned that Washington would bear responsibility for all consequences, adding that Iran would not leave aggression unanswered. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard reported shooting down and deterring drones and a fighter jet entering its airspace. The strikes occurred amid talks involving Qatar and centered partly on the Strait of Hormuz, where disruptions affect global oil, gas, and fertilizer supplies.
"Iran's foreign ministry called the strikes a ceasefire violation and warned that Washington would bear responsibility for "all consequences," without details. "The Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered," it added in a statement. Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Tuesday said it had shot down and deterred drones and a fighter jet that entered its airspace, according to Iran's official Mizan news agency, which did not specify when the incident occurred."
"The U.S. military has characterized Monday's strikes in southern Iran as defensive, saying targets included missile launch sites and boats placing mines, and said the U.S. acted with "restraint" in light of the weekslong ceasefire. The strikes were the latest flare-up in the fragile ceasefire that began April 7 and has largely held. It wasn't immediately clear what the developments would mean for negotiations."
"Negotiations center in part on the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway off southern Iran through which a fifth of the world's crude oil and natural gas passed before the war began with U.S.-Israeli strikes in February. Tehran retaliated by effectively closing the strait, stranding hundreds of ships and shocking the global economy. Besides disrupting energy markets, the strait's closure is also squeezing fertilizer supplies worldwide."
"The strikes came after Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf went to Qatar as part of the talks, which U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday were "proceeding nicely." The U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Center said an explosion was reported Tuesday morning aboard a tanker in the Gulf of Oman, which lies near the strait. No one was injured in the blast; there was no immediate information on the cause."
#iran-us-tensions #ceasefire-and-negotiations #strait-of-hormuz #maritime-security #energy-and-fertilizer-supply
Read at Fortune
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]