Iran ratcheted up its rhetoric against the U.S. on Sunday, a day after it said it had reasserted control of the Strait of Hormuz. President Donald Trump confirmed peace talks with Iran are continuing, while warning Tehran not to try to use blackmail.
Iran’s parliament speaker and top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said talks to end the war with the U.S. and Israel are continuing but that his country stands ready to resume the conflict and warned the U.S. against using a naval blockade against its ships in the strait.
“It is not the case that we think just because we are negotiating, the armed forces are not ready,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in televised remarks late Saturday according to a report on Iranian state media. “Rather, just as the people are in the streets, our armed forces are also ready.”
Ghalibaf also reiterated Iran’s intentions to restrict traffic through the strait, a key energy chokepoint.
“It is impossible for others to pass through the Strait of Hormuz but not us. If the U.S. does not abandon the blockade, traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will certainly be restricted,” he said.
Trump announced the blockade on April 12, after complaining that Tehran has not appeared to reopen the strait, one of his conditions for agreeing to the fragile two-week ceasefire that is currently in effect.
Gunboat diplomacy
Two gunboats from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard opened fire on a tanker transiting the strait, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said Saturday. It reported the tanker and crew as safe, without identifying the vessel or its destination.
Shipping sources told Reuters at least two other vessels reported coming under fire while trying to transit the waterway.
The confusion over the strait’s status has left ship operators in a state of limbo.
Video footage from ship-tracking firm Kpler showed that several tankers and cargo ships attempted to exit the waterway on Friday but turned back.
Oil prices plunged more than 10% on Friday to below $90 per barrel on hopes that energy supplies would start flowing again from the region. About a fifth of the world’s crude supplies passed through the strait before the war. The closure of the sea lane connecting the Persian Gulf to global energy markets has triggered the largest oil supply disruption in history.
In Mumbai, India summoned Iran’s ambassador after an Indian-flagged vessel carrying crude oil was attacked while trying to cross the strait, Reuters reported.
In a White House event on Saturday. Trump declined to take reporters’ questions about Iran but said, “We have very good conversations going on.”
He said Iran “got a little cute,” later adding, “They wanted to close up the strait again,” referring to the Strait of Hormuz.
“They can’t blackmail us,” Trump said.
Nuclear rights
Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was quoted as saying the U.S. can’t deprive Iran of its rights to a nuclear program.
“Trump says Iran cannot make use of its nuclear rights but doesn’t say for what crime. Who is he to deprive a nation of its rights?” Reuters quoted Pezeshkian as saying via the Iranian Student News Agency.
In an interview with the Associated Press on Saturday on the margins of a diplomacy forum in Turkey, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said his country will not hand over its enriched uranium to the United States, rejecting claims made by Trump.
“I can tell you that no enriched material is going to be shipped to United States,” Khatibzadeh said. “This is non-starter and I can assure you that while we are ready to address any concerns that we do have, we’re not going to accept things that are nonstarters.”
Trump on Friday said that Iran had agreed to hand over its stockpile of enriched uranium.
He also said the U.S. will go into Iran and “get all the nuclear dust,” referring to the 970 pounds (440 kilograms) of enriched uranium believed to be buried under nuclear sites badly damaged by U.S. military strikes last year.
Peace talks in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, between a U.S. delegation led by Vice President JD Vance and Iranian negotiators headed by Ghalibaf failed to reach an agreement last weekend.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said in a statement that Pakistan’s army chief, serving as an intermediary, presented the proposals to Iran during his recent visit to Tehran, and that they were still under review.
It was not revealed what was in the proposals.
‘Excessive demands’
The council said Iran has yet to respond, but further talks would require the U.S. to abandon “excessive demands and adjust its requests to the realities on the ground.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on Friday said on social media: “In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire.”
However, vessels must transit through a “coordinated route” announced by Iran’s maritime authorities, Araghchi said. It is unclear whether Tehran will force ships to pay a toll to pass the strait.
Israel and Lebanon agreed Thursday to a 10-day ceasefire starting at 5 p.m. ET that evening. Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon against the militant group Hezbollah, which is a close ally of Iran, has been another hurdle in negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
— The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.