Iran reopens Strait of Hormuz, but Trump says blockade on Iranian ships and ports will stay in force

Iran said Fri­day it ful­ly re­opened the Strait of Hor­muz to com­mer­cial ves­sels, but Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said the Amer­i­can block­ade on Iran­ian ships and ports “will re­main in full force” un­til Tehran reach­es a deal with the U.S., in­clud­ing on its nu­clear pro­gram.

Iran­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi post­ed on X that the cru­cial wa­ter­way through which about 20% of the world’s oil is shipped was now ful­ly open to com­mer­cial ves­sels, as a 10-day truce be­tween Is­rael and the Iran-backed Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group in Lebanon ap­peared to hold.

Trump ini­tial­ly cel­e­brat­ed, post­ing on so­cial me­dia that Iran an­nounced the strait “is ful­ly open and ready for full pas­sage.” But min­utes lat­er, he is­sued an­oth­er post say­ing the U.S. Navy’s block­ade would con­tin­ue un­til “UN­TIL SUCH TIME AS OUR TRANS­AC­TION WITH IRAN IS 100% COM­PLETE.”

Trump im­posed the block­ade ear­li­er this week af­ter Iran re­strict­ed traf­fic through the strait due to fight­ing in Lebanon, which Iran claimed to be a breach of the Pak­istan-bro­kered cease­fire reached be­tween the U.S., Is­rael and Iran.

At the time Trump said the block­ade would en­force an “all or none” pol­i­cy in hopes of pres­sur­ing Iran to re­open the strait.

Trump’s de­ci­sion to con­tin­ue the block­ade de­spite Iran’s an­nounce­ment ap­peared aimed at sus­tain­ing pres­sure on Tehran as the fate of the two-week cease­fire reached last week re­mains un­cer­tain. Di­rect talks be­tween the U.S. and Iran last week­end were in­con­clu­sive, as the two na­tions dif­fered over Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram and oth­er stick­ing points.

Truce in Lebanon could help US-Iran peace ef­forts

Oil prices fell on hopes of a deal. The head of the In­ter­na­tion­al En­er­gy Agency had warned that en­er­gy shocks could get worse if the strait did not re­open. Iran closed the cru­cial wa­ter­way short­ly af­ter the war be­gan.

The truce in Lebanon of­fered a pause in fight­ing be­tween Is­rael and Hezbol­lah and could clear one ma­jor ob­sta­cle to a deal be­tween Iran and the Unit­ed States and Is­rael to end weeks of dev­as­tat­ing war. But it was un­clear whether the mil­i­tant group would rec­og­nize a deal it did not play a role in ne­go­ti­at­ing and which will leave Is­raeli troops oc­cu­py­ing a stretch of south­ern Lebanon.

Trump said in an­oth­er post that Is­rael is “pro­hib­it­ed” by the U.S. from fur­ther strikes on Lebanon and that “enough is enough” in the Is­rael-Hezbol­lah war. The White House did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to a ques­tion about whether the pro­hi­bi­tion spans both of­fen­sive and de­fen­sive strikes.

Cel­e­bra­tions in Beirut

Mean­while in Beirut, bar­rages of gun­shots rang out across the Lebanese cap­i­tal as res­i­dents fired in­to the air just af­ter mid­night to cel­e­brate the be­gin­ning of the truce. Dis­placed fam­i­lies be­gan mov­ing to­ward south­ern Lebanon and Beirut’s south­ern sub­urbs de­spite warn­ings by of­fi­cials not to at­tempt to re­turn to their homes un­til it be­came clear whether the cease­fire would hold.

A spokesper­son for the U.N. peace­keep­ers in south­ern Lebanon said Fri­day they had not ob­served any airstrikes since mid­night, but ac­cused the Is­raeli mil­i­tary of vi­o­lat­ing air­space and of ar­tillery shelling in south­ern Lebanon. The Is­raeli mil­i­tary did not im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment. Ac­cord­ing to the agree­ment shared by the State De­part­ment, Is­rael can act in self-de­fense against im­mi­nent at­tacks but can­not car­ry out of­fen­sive op­er­a­tions against south­ern Lebanon.

Trump her­ald­ed the deal a “his­toric day for Lebanon,” even as he ex­pressed con­fi­dence the war with Iran would soon end.

By KA­REEM CHEHAYEB, AB­BY SEWELL and MELANIE LID­MAN

BEIRUT (AP)