‘We can’t let Iran blackmail the world,’ says Trump as US blockade of Hormuz starts

Summary

‘We can’t let Iran blackmail the world,’ says Trump as US blockade of Hormuz starts Tehran says move will escalate crisis The US military began a blockade of ships leaving Iran’s ports yesterday, president Donald Trump said, and Tehran threatened to retaliate against ports of its Gulf neighbours after weekend talks on ending the war broke down. Oil prices climbed back over $100 (€85) per barrel, with no sign of a swift reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to ease the biggest ever disruption in supplies and broader concerns over the durability of a two-week ceasefire agreement reached last week. Mr Trump said Iran had been in touch yesterday and wanted to make a deal but he will not sanction any agreement that allows Tehran to have a nuclear weapon. “Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Mr Trump told reporters at the White House. “We can’t let a country blackmail or extort the world.” Since the war started on February 28, Iran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz to all vessels except its own, saying passage would be permitted only under Iranian control and subject to a fee. Mr Trump said earlier that Washington would block Iranian vessels and any ships that paid such tolls and that any Iranian “fast-attack” ships that went near the blockade would be eliminated. Brigadier General Reza Talaei-Nik, a spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Defence, warned that efforts by foreign military to police the strait would escalate the crisis and instability in global energy security. Nato allies, including Britain and France, said they would not be drawn into the conflict by taking part in the blockade, stressing instead the need to reopen the waterway, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil normally passes. The ceasefire that halted six weeks of US and Israeli airstrikes looked in jeopardy, with only a week left to run. Washington said Tehran rejected its demands at weekend talks in Islamabad, the highest-level discussions since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The US military’s regional Central Command said the blockade would be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations” entering or leaving Iranian ports in the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. “The blockade will not impede neutral transit passage through the Strait of Hormuz to or from non-Iranian destinations,” Central Command said in a note to seafarers seen by Reuters yesterday. Two Iranian-linked tankers, the Aurora and New Future, laden with oil products, left the strait yesterday before the deadline, according to LSEG data. An Iranian military spokesperson called any US restrictions on international shipping “piracy”, warning that if Iranian ports were threatened, no port in the Gulf or Gulf of Oman would be secure. Any military vessels approaching the strait would violate the ceasefire, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said. Mr Trump said that Iran’s navy had been “completely obliterated” during the war, adding that only a small number of “fast-attack ships” remained. “Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea. It is quick and brutal,” Mr Trump wrote on social media, referring to the US strikes carried out against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. With the war unpopular at home and rising energy prices causing political blowback, Mr Trump paused the US-Israeli bombing campaign last week after threatening to destroy Iran’s “whole civilisation” unless it reopened the strait. Israel has continued to bombard Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and yesterday Israeli troops launched an attack to seize a key south Lebanon town from the group. Israel and the US have said the campaign against Hezbollah was not part of the ceasefire, while Iran has insisted it is. Iran has brought new demands, including recognition of its control of the waterway, lifting of sanctions and the withdrawal of forces from US military bases across the Middle East. Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said efforts were still on to resolve the conflict after the direct talks between the US and Iran in Islamabad at the weekend. Mr Trump has declared victory, despite failing to achieve the objectives he set out at the start of the war: to eliminate Iran’s ability to strike its neighbours, end its nuclear programme and make it easier for Iranians to topple their government. Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was deeply concerned by attacks on medical workers in Lebanon after a deadly strike on a Red Cross centre in the country yesterday and the death of a volunteer a day earlier. Lebanon’s state news agency reported that yesterday’s strike, which it said was carried out by Israel, killed one person and damaged Lebanese Red Cross vehicles. The ICRC said the Lebanese Red Cross centre in the district of Tyre, a city on Lebanon’s coast, was hit by the strike. It did not comment on who was responsible or give details of the victim. Israel’s military said it had carried out a strike on a “Hezbollah terrorist” in Tyre and was investigating reports the strike had caused damage to a Red Cross centre. The military did not identify the individual it said it had killed. On Sunday, the Lebanese Red Cross said one of its volunteers, Hassan Badawi, had died from his injuries after a strike by an Israeli drone in the district of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon. Mr Badawi had volunteered for the Lebanese Red Cross since 2012, his friend Ahmed Qassam told Reuters during his funeral yesterday. He was buried in a temporary grave in Choueifat, south of Beirut, as it was not possible to access Mr Badawi’s home village of Sultaniyah in Bint Jbeil district, due to intensive fighting there. Israeli troops yesterday launched an attack to seize the key border town in southern Lebanon. “I was waiting for a phone call from him to tell me, ‘Mother, I’m fine.’ He didn’t call me. My heart was burning,” Mr Badawi’s mother, Ahlam Badawi, said. “They (the Israeli military) attacked him directly. He was just doing humanitarian work. “He was not doing anything more,” Mr Badawi’s father, Ali Badawi, added. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the accusation. Earlier, it had said it had struck a “Hezbollah terrorist” in the area and that it was reviewing the incident after it received reports of injury to a Red Cross team. Agnes Dhur, head of the ICRC delegation in Lebanon, said in a statement yesterday: “The loss of those who dedicate their lives to saving others is gravely concerning, given the impact on the civilians who depend on their help. “Humanitarian and medical personnel must be protected. They must be allowed to reach and help the wounded, and return unharmed,” she added.