Trump says US has 'total control' over Strait of Hormuz - as Iran says no progress on peace deal
Iran and the United States remain at loggerheads over efforts to agree a permanent end to the war in the Gulf - as Trump claims they have total control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Listen to this article
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the United States in is control of the Strait of Hormuz.
"The U.S.A. has total control over the Strait of Hormuz. I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT! Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, “A WALL OF STEEL,” and there is nothing Iran can do about it," he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Iran and the United States remain at loggerheads over efforts to agree a permanent end to the war in the Gulf, according to a senior Iranian source, who said there had been no progress in talks to revive the interim deal agreed in June and define a time frame to implement it.
The comments were a further blow to hopes for a resolution to the crisis, following new attacks on shipping in the region on Tuesday.
The deal agreed in June declared an "immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts", but quickly unravelled, with U.S. President Donald Trump saying it was "over" on July 7 and Iran's foreign ministry declaring it "suspended" a week later.
Read More:Trump weighs in on Fifa row as he tells football world it would be 'mistake' to oust Infantino
The U.S. accuses Iran of failing to honour an agreement under the deal to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route.
Tehran says Washington has reneged on its commitments, including lifting a blockade of Iranian ports and releasing frozen Iranian assets.
"One of the issues that is being discussed via mediators is the U.S. returning to the interim agreement and defining a timeframe for implementing the commitments.
There has been absolutely no progress on this issue," the Iranian source said.
There was no immediate comment from Washington.
Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, since the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28.
Iran has struck U.S. assets and infrastructure in countries including Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
The June interim ceasefire agreement set a 60-day period, extendable by mutual consent, within which Iran and the U.S. were expected to reach a final deal limiting Tehran's nuclear programme and lifting U.S. sanctions.
The Iranian source dismissed a report on Wednesday from Turkey's Anadolu news agency that quoted Pakistani government sources as saying they had agreed to extend that 60-day period.
"There is no talk of an extension because, from Iran’s perspective, there is no period that began and therefore nothing to extend. The United States violated the interim agreement 48 hours after it was reached and withdrew from it a few days later," the source told Reuters.
Both Iran and the United States have stepped up rhetoric in the past two days.
Iran's top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, said on Tuesday that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed unless the U.S. accepted Iran's conditions to end the war.
That followed a new demand from Trump on Monday that Iran should pay compensation for people killed in 50 years of wars, attacks and protests.
Throughout the conflict, Trump has alternated between threats of escalation and claims that a peace deal is imminent.
Speaking to reporters after a visit to Ohio on Tuesday, Trump said: "Iran is going fine, going just absolutely fine.
"We have a country that has been the bully of the Middle East for 50 years, really 51 if you think about it ... and they're no longer the bully of the Middle East."
The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman and the entrance to the Gulf, handled a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flow before the war.
Benchmark Brent crude futures LCOc1 have surged since the start of the war in February, hitting a peak of $126 a barrel, roughly 75% above pre-war levels, with choppy trade reflecting concerns over disruptions to Gulf oil supplies and shifting signals on peace talks.
Those concerns were compounded by separate attacks on shipping on Tuesday.