Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued a statement Wednesday thanking captains and shipowners in the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman “for complying with Iran’s Strait of Hormuz regulations. IRGC U.S. “threats neutralized and new protocols in place”
Here is the latest on the Iran war
- President Trump threatened Iran on Wednesday with “higher level” military strikes if it doesn’t accept a peace deal, but he says it’s “too soon” for new direct talks with Iranian officials in Pakistan after reporting “great progress” toward an end to the war.
- Iran has yet to react publicly to President Trump’s announcement of a pause in the brief Project Freedom mission to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which prompted the first Iranian attacks on vessels in the strait and against U.S. Gulf allies in almost a month.
- Mr. Trump put Project Freedom on pause Tuesday night, saying it was to see if “a Complete and Final Agreement” to end the war with Iran could be nailed down amid what he called “great progress” in negotiations brokered by Pakistan.
- Too soon” to think about new round of direct talks with Iran in Pakistan, Trump says
- President Trump told the New York Post on Wednesday morning that it was “too soon” to start thinking about a second round of face-to-face peace talks between the U.S. and Iran, the newspaper reported as Mr. Trump threatened Iran with “higher level and intensity” strikes if it declines to agree to a peace deal.
- Mr. Trump had said Tuesday night that he was pausing a U.S. operation to guide commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz to make room for diplomacy, saying there had been “great progress” in negotiations, without offering any details of the talks.
- Asked whether The Post should prepare to send a reporter back to Pakistan for a new round of negotiations, after sources in Islamabad told some news outlets that the two sides were close to agreeing on a preliminary deal to end the war, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t think so,” according to the newspaper.
Trump threatens to attack Iran with “higher level and intensity” if it doesn’t agree to peace deal
President Trump threatened Iran on Wednesday with new attacks, warning they would be at a “higher level and intensity” than previous rounds of bombing, if it declined to agree to a peace deal, which he said was “perhaps, a big assumption.”
His latest remarks, in a Truth Social post, came 13 hours after he said in a previous post that he was pausing Project Freedom, a U.S. military operation to guide vessels through the Strait of Hormuz that lasted one day and drew a violent reaction by Iran, to see if a peace deal could be reached amid “great progress” in negotiations.
“Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is, perhaps, a big assumption, the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end, and the highly effective Blockade will allow the Hormuz Strait to be OPEN TO ALL, including Iran,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday. “If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before.”
Mr. Trump has not given any indication what Iran purportedly agreed to to end the more than two-month war and standoff over control of the strait, a vital shipping lane which has been gridlocked since the conflict began, sending global energy prices soaring.
Iran has not reacted publicly to any of Mr. Trump’s latest remarks.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday night that Operation Epic Fury was already over, noting that President Trump had previously “notified Congress, we’re done with that stage of it.”
“The operation, Epic Fury, is concluded,” Rubio said. “We achieved the objectives of that operation.”
Iran’s military thanks ship owners “for complying with Iran’s Strait of Hormuz regulations”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement Wednesday thanking captains and shipowners in the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman “for complying with Iran’s Strait of Hormuz regulations and contributing to regional maritime security.”
The U.S. military and Iran have both claimed for weeks to be in control of the vital shipping lanes of the strait.
The U.S. launched an operation, Project Freedom, on Monday to guide ships through the strait in defiance of Iran’s demands for vessels to coordinate with its military, but after just a day and two ships being led through the waterway, President Trump announced a pause in the mission Tuesday night.
He said the pause was to see if a peace deal could be nailed down with Tehran amid “great progress” in negotiations.
It came after Iran reacted to Project Freedom on Monday by attacking several ships in the strait and launching missiles and drones at U.S. ally the United Arab Emirates for the first time since Mr. Trump announced a ceasefire with Tehran on April 8.
In its statement Wednesday, published on its social media accounts, the IRGC said with U.S. “threats neutralized and new protocols in place, safe, stable passage through SOH [Strait of Hormuz] will be ensured.”
