Iran-US war live: Trump says blockade in Hormuz and pledges ‘final decision’ on MOU – The Independent
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Iran still has not lifted its blockade and insists there is no clause requiring Tehran to forego costly tolls, according to Iranian media
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Donald Trump vowed to lift the US naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz and make a “final determination” on Iran on Friday, as the world awaits his decision on a reported memorandum of understanding hashed out by negotiators to extend the ceasefire and pave the way for nuclear talks.
As of Friday evening US time, however, no progress on a deal had been announced, despite prior positive indications.
“Ships caught in the Strait due to our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of ‘heading home!’” the US president wrote on Truth Social earlier in the day.
Trump said some items have already been agreed, but insisted Iran “must agree” never to have a nuclear weapon, and that the Strait of Hormuz must be reopened without tolls. He said that uranium will be unearthed by the US in coordination with Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog and destroyed.
But Iran’s Fars news agency, citing sources, quickly pushed back on the president’s claims, casting the statement as a “mixture of truth and falsehood” intended “to portray a fabricated victory.”
It said there was no clause in the initial MOU that Iran would have to reopen the Strait without tolls, and no provision about destroying Tehran’s nuclear materials. Iran would reopen the waterway according to its own pre-determined arrangements, it said.
Donald Trump’s story about the fate of the Iran can seem to change by the day, and his counterparts in Tehran are little better, according to a former CIA officer.
“The Iranians have definitely been speaking with two different voices one for the world community or on the negotiating table and the other to their own population,” Scott Uehlinger told Al Jazeera.
“It’s very hard to understand Iran [and] understand Iranian messages,” he added.
US and Israeli strikes killed off numerous members of the pre-existing Iranian leadership at the outset of the war, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The threat of Iranian mines is among the many factors snarling traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
But the US military has not confirmed whether Tehran has actually set mines in the vital oil shipping lane, US officials told NBC News.
With or without mines, traffic through the strait continues to move at just small fraction of its pre-war levels, adding to the economic pain that’s resulted from the war.
The Trump administration is keeping its cards close to its chest about the fate of Iran war negotiations.
Despite a much-watched announcement from the president that he was considering a “final determination” on recent proposals on Friday, much of the day has come and gone without any announcement of a deal.
When asked about whether a deal had been made, the administration remained vague.
“President Trump will only make a deal that is good for America and satisfies his redlines,” the White House told CBS News. “Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon.”
The US and Iran have not announced a final deal yet, but any lasting agreement will likely include some provision regarding Tehran’s nuclear stockpile.
President Trump has said the US wants to seize and secure the stockpile to keep it from being turned into a nuclear weapon.
Kazakhstan, meanwhile, has offered to take the stockpile if both sides reach an agreement, according the UN.
Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev met with the International Atomic Energy Agency this week and signaled his “openness” to take on the near-weapons grade uranium, the Financial Times reports.
The US has seized $1 billion in Iranian cryptocurrency so far as part of its efforts to financially hammer Tehran.
“Just outright grabbed the wallets,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday during an event at the Reagan National Economic Forum. “Some of them may be typing in right now and might not realize their wallet had been grabbed.”
The fate of Iranian assets, which have faced a mix of seizures and sanctions, reportedly remains one of the key issues still being debated by negotiators on both sides.
A clip of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth giving a “cringe” speech to US sailors about the Iran war is going viral.
Hegseth was in Singapore on Friday, where he did drills with the crew of the USS Boxer and then spoke to a group of assembled sailors about the ongoing conflict.
In his remarks, Hegseth pointed to a recent comment from President Trump, which threatened further US strikes if Iran doesn’t agree to a deal to end the war.
“He said, ‘Well, Iran can either do it the right way, with a deal across the table, or they can deal with my guy on the left,’” Hegseth said. “That happened to be me. But it’s not me. It’s you guys!”
Online commentators quickly mocked the speech and the audience of service members, who appeared to be mostly unmoved by Hegseth’s call to arms.
Read more about the backlash in our full story.
The Trump administration has now had three months to make its case for the Iran war, but Americans are still broadly against the campaign, according to a new poll.
About 38 percent of Americans support the strikes, a POLITICO poll found, while 41 percent of respondents said they don’t believe the president has a plan for ending the conflict.
Even among Trump supporters, there is little positive sentiment about the war.
Forty-five percent of them told POLITICO the president hasn’t accomplished his goals.
The United Arab Emirates reportedly carried out dozens of strikes against Iran as part of the conflict, contrasting with the approach of some of its more cautious Gulf neighbors.
The strikes, reported by The Wall Street Journal, were coordinated with the US and Israel and continued through the day after the April ceasefire. They represent a larger involvement in the conflict from the UAE than was previously known.
Some of the reported attacks hit Iranian energy infrastructure as payback for Tehran targeting similar facilities in the UAE, per the paper.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, the highest-ranking US military officer, was seen on Friday leaving the White House, suggesting the president’s Situation Room meeting may have ended without any major progress on an Iran war deal.
President Donald Trump once published a book called The Art of the Deal, but the Republican’s erratic style may be undermining Iran talks, according to officials.
Iranian officials told The Washington Post that Tehran has a deep distrust of the Trump administration, especially after the US and Israel attacked the country twice in the middle of past negotiations in recent months.
The threat of another such strike has made it hard to clinch this round of negotiations, where both sides want upfront guarantees.
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