admin President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz is open to commercial traffic, though the US and Iran continue to trade attacks that have raised concerns over safety on one of the world’s most important oil shipping routes.
Trump’s comments were made during an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Trump also said the United States hit Iran hard in response to its latest attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
“We hit them very hard last night,” Trump told CNN by telephone in an interview centering mainly on the death of Senator Lindsey Graham. Trump said the United States and Iran had been close to “a deal” on Saturday.
“They were giving up everything, and then all of a sudden two hours after that they hit a ship with a drone. These people, there is something wrong with them,” he said.
Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam,Oman. Reuters
Earlier, the US military insisted that ships are moving through the Strait of Hormuz despite Iran’s claim to have closed it in the latest flare-up of the Mideast war.
“Iran does not control the strait. Traffic is flowing,” CENTCOM, which oversees US forces in the Middle East, said on X.
In a later post, CENTCOM directly mentioned and challenged an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps statement that the vital conduit for global oil flow was closing. But the US military said the strait “remains an international waterway. US forces are positioned and prepared to keep it that way.”
As it announced the strait was closing, Iran also attacked US-allied Gulf neighbors in response to the latest series of US strikes on Iran, further endangering a deal that was supposed to halt the war while negotiators seek a definitive agreement to end it.
Agencies
