Ship runs aground in Strait of Hormuz, Iranian state TV reports

A ship ran aground in the Strait of Hor­muz while us­ing a route not ap­proved by Iran, state tele­vi­sion in Tehran re­port­ed Wednes­day. The ves­sel was iden­ti­fied as a for­eign con­tain­er ship, with no oth­er de­tails.

The re­port ap­peared aimed at un­der­lin­ing Tehran’s claims to con­trol the strait, which the world has long con­sid­ered an in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ter­way. It saw a fifth of all oil and nat­ur­al gas pass through it in peace­time.

Iran has used its abil­i­ty to choke off the wa­ter­way as a key source of lever­age since the war be­gan, dis­rupt­ing glob­al mar­kets for en­er­gy and oth­er crit­i­cal goods.

The re­port came as U.S. Mideast en­voy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kush­n­er, U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s son-in-law, were in Do­ha, Qatar, for talks over reach­ing a per­ma­nent end to the Iran war. Iran’s top ne­go­tia­tor, Kazem Gharib­aba­di, trav­eled to Qatar with a team as well.

The Unit­ed States and Iran reached an ini­tial agree­ment ear­ly Mon­day to open the Strait of Hor­muz and fur­ther ex­tend a shaky cease­fire in the Iran war, po­ten­tial­ly al­low­ing des­per­ate­ly need­ed oil and nat­ur­al gas to reach the glob­al mar­ket.

Tech­ni­cal talks be­tween diplo­mats be­gan Wednes­day in Qatar, said two re­gion­al of­fi­cials, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss the closed-door dis­cus­sions. Ne­go­tia­tors aim to nail down specifics to pave the way for top lead­ers to seal an agree­ment, though dif­fer­ences over the strait and Lebanon loom large.

The Strait of Hor­muz is a key stick­ing point in talks

Iran and the Unit­ed States agreed as part of an in­ter­im deal to al­low ships to pass un­charged for 60 days, but Tehran in­sist­ed it must con­trol the routes of the ves­sels and lat­er charge fees for pas­sage, up­end­ing decades of prac­tice in the wa­ter­way.

The U.S. and many Gulf Arab states say they won’t agree to the charges. An ef­fort by Oman and a U.N. agency to launch a new route near Oman’s shore sparked at­tacks across the Mideast over last week­end, high­light­ing the ten­sions.

Iran­ian state TV on Wednes­day said the ship “ran aground with its car­go be­cause of shal­low wa­ters along the route it had cho­sen and was un­able to con­tin­ue sail­ing.” It said ship­pers need­ed to fol­low the in­struc­tions of Iran’s para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard in the strait.

The Guard’s navy “has re­peat­ed­ly warned cap­tains, shipown­ers and of­fi­cials of ship­ping com­pa­nies around the world that any en­try or ex­it through routes oth­er than the ‘Route of Au­thor­i­ty’ in the Per­sian Gulf could lead to ir­repara­ble in­ci­dents,” it said.

The re­port did not men­tion the two ships Iran at­tacked in re­cent days for dar­ing to head out through the strait with­out Tehran’s per­mis­sion, in­clud­ing one car­ry­ing crude oil from Qatar.

Qatar meets with both sides

Witkoff and Kush­n­er ar­rived in Qatar on Tues­day ahead of talks, with Qatar me­di­at­ing. While Iran has said it planned no meet­ings with the Amer­i­cans, there was the pos­si­bil­i­ty of so-called “in­di­rect ne­go­ti­a­tions,” in which the na­tions pass mes­sages through Qatari of­fi­cials. That has hap­pened mul­ti­ple times dur­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions in the sec­ond Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Qatar ear­ly Wednes­day ac­knowl­edged a meet­ing be­tween the Amer­i­cans and its for­eign min­is­ter, Sheikh Mo­hammed bin Ab­dul­rah­man Al Thani. A read­out from Qatar’s For­eign Min­istry said the men talked about the in­ter­im deal “along with the ef­forts aimed at pro­mot­ing se­cu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty in the re­gion through di­a­logue and diplo­ma­cy.”

Sheikh Mo­hammed al­so met with Gharib­aba­di and oth­er Iran­ian of­fi­cials. An Iran­ian state­ment said they dis­cussed “the im­ple­men­ta­tion process of the mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing on end­ing the im­posed war, as well as the ex­ist­ing chal­lenges and ob­sta­cles to its im­ple­men­ta­tion.” Pak­istani me­di­a­tors al­so were on hand.

Iran­ian par­lia­ment speak­er Mo­ham­mad Bagher Qal­ibaf, a key ne­go­tia­tor, told Iran­ian state tele­vi­sion overnight that work con­tin­ues to try to reach a per­ma­nent end to the war.

“We are en­gaged in di­a­logue, but if they refuse to im­ple­ment what has been agreed through di­a­logue, we are pre­pared for war,” Qal­ibaf said.

Lebanon is an­oth­er key point in a fi­nal deal. Iran has in­sist­ed that all fight­ing be­tween the Iran­ian-backed mili­tia Hezbol­lah and Is­raeli mil­i­tary forces there end.

Iran al­so has called for Is­rael to give up the land it oc­cu­pies in south­ern Lebanon now. Is­rael in­sists it must hold the ter­ri­to­ry and have a free hand to at­tack Hezbol­lah, which has been launch­ing at­tacks in­to north­ern Is­rael.

More ships get out of Strait of Hor­muz

While ship traf­fic in the strait dropped af­ter this week­end’s at­tacks, more coun­tries say their ves­sels have got­ten out.

Thai­land’s For­eign Min­istry said Tues­day that 10 out of 11 Thai-flagged ves­sels or ves­sels char­tered by Thai op­er­a­tors have de­part­ed the Strait of Hor­muz safe­ly. South Ko­re­an of­fi­cials say all but two of the coun­try’s 26 ves­sels that were strand­ed have left safe­ly.

Iraq shoots down drone over Bagh­dad

Al­so Wednes­day, Iraqi au­thor­i­ties shot down a small drone over Bagh­dad’s heav­i­ly for­ti­fied Green Zone, where many em­bassies and gov­ern­ment build­ings are lo­cat­ed, two Iraqi se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials said. They spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were not au­tho­rized to com­ment pub­licly. One of the of­fi­cials said the drone was un­armed and like­ly was be­ing used for sur­veil­lance. No group im­me­di­ate­ly claimed the drone as theirs.

Af­ter the U.S. and Is­rael launched their war on Iran in late Feb­ru­ary, Iran­ian-backed Iraqi mili­tias launched fre­quent at­tacks on U.S. mil­i­tary and diplo­mat­ic fa­cil­i­ties in Iraq. The drone be­ing shot down overnight Wednes­day was the first se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dent in Bagh­dad since the U.S. and Iran agreed to a cease­fire. —DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP)

_______

Sto­ry by JON GAM­BRELL | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Amir Vah­dat in Tehran, Iran, Samy Magdy in Cairo, Na­jib Jobain in Do­ha, Qatar, Jin­ta­mas Sak­sorn­chai in Bangkok, Qas­sim Ab­dul-Zahra in Bagh­dad and Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Ko­rea, con­tributed to this re­port.