Trump says deal to reopen Strait of Hormuz could come as early as Wednesday

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said a deal on the Strait of Hor­muz could come as ear­ly as Wednes­day, as Iran and Oman inched to­ward an agree­ment to re­open the crit­i­cal wa­ter­way and po­ten­tial­ly help bring an end to the war.

Is­rael and the U.S. orig­i­nal­ly cit­ed goals in­clud­ing top­pling Tehran’s gov­ern­ment and end­ing its nu­clear pro­gram, but the war has de­volved in­to a fight over the strait as Iran’s at­tacks and threats ground ship­ping to a halt.

Clo­sure of the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and nat­ur­al gas once passed, has dri­ven up the price of fu­el and ba­sic goods far be­yond the re­gion, roil­ing the glob­al econ­o­my. Trump is al­so un­der mount­ing pres­sure to end an un­pop­u­lar war ahead of midterm con­gres­sion­al elec­tions sched­uled for lat­er this year.

Trump says deal to re­open Strait is close

The U.S. pres­i­dent was asked by re­porters trav­el­ing with him in Cal­i­for­nia about a re­port on the Ax­ios news site that an an­nounce­ment on the Strait of Hor­muz could be made on Wednes­day.

“It could hap­pen. To­mor­row or the next day,” he said, speak­ing on Tues­day evening Cal­i­for­nia time. “A lot of progress has been made.”

Oil prices eased Wednes­day on hopes of a deal that would al­low ship­ping to re­sume. Brent crude, the in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard, slipped by 1.2% to $78.43 per bar­rel ear­ly Wednes­day.

The U.S. and Iran reached a deal to open the strait in June, on­ly for at­tacks to re­sume. In re­cent days, Trump has again al­ter­nate­ly threat­ened mas­sive strikes and voiced sup­port for diplo­mat­ic ef­forts.

Ships at­tacked in Red Sea and Strait of Hor­muz

Even as hopes in­creased that a deal on the Strait of Hor­muz could be im­mi­nent, at­tacks on ship­ping in the re­gion con­tin­ued.

The Iran­ian-backed Houthi rebels claimed Wednes­day they had fired bal­lis­tic mis­siles to­ward a Sau­di oil tanker called the Wafa in the Red Sea. Brig. Gen. Yahya Sare, a mil­i­tary spokesman for the Houthis, made said in a pre-record­ed state­ment that the ves­sel was tar­get­ed in the north­ern Red Sea off the Sau­di port city of Yan­bu. He didn’t pro­vide ev­i­dence.

There was no im­me­di­ate com­ment from Sau­di Ara­bia.

The at­tack is part of a re­cent es­ca­la­tion be­tween the rebels and Sau­di Ara­bia which threat­ened to reignite the Yemen civ­il war four years af­ter the two sides reached a de-fac­to truce. In Ju­ly, the Houthis an­nounced they were clos­ing the Bab el-Man­deb Strait that leads to the Red Sea for Sau­di-linked ship­ping in re­tal­i­a­tion for the king­dom’s block­ade on Yemen and an at­tack on the in­ter­na­tion­al air­port in Yemen’s rebel-held cap­i­tal, Sanaa.

On Tues­day, an In­di­an-flagged com­mer­cial ship sank in the Red Sea off Yemen af­ter be­ing struck by an ex­plo­sive-laden boat, Yemeni and In­di­an au­thor­i­ties said. Yemen’s coast guard res­cued the crew, which in­clud­ed 13 In­di­ans and a Yemeni. There was no im­me­di­ate claim of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Ear­li­er Tues­day, a car­go ship re­port­ed be­ing “hit by an un­known pro­jec­tile” while tra­vers­ing the Strait of Hor­muz, ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed King­dom Mar­itime Trade Op­er­a­tions Cen­ter.

The Cen­ter said the re­port­ed strike dam­aged the ves­sel at around 2 a.m. lo­cal time, about 37 kilo­me­tres (23 miles) north­east of the Omani port city of Al Khasab. The British mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty firm Am­brey said the ship sus­tained dam­age.

The agree­ment would see routes con­trolled by Iran and Oman, re­gion­al of­fi­cials tell AP

The pos­si­ble agree­ment emerg­ing from talks be­tween Iran and Oman calls for ships to en­ter the Per­sian Gulf through an Iran­ian-con­trolled route and ex­it through a route con­trolled by Oman, two re­gion­al of­fi­cials told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press. Ser­vice fees would be charged for pro­vid­ing se­cu­ri­ty and pre­serv­ing the mar­itime en­vi­ron­ment, the of­fi­cials said.

The of­fi­cials spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss the sen­si­tive ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has pre­vi­ous­ly ruled out any deal that would give Iran con­trol over the strait, which was an open in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ter­way be­fore the U.S. and Is­rael at­tacked Iran on Feb. 28. About one fifth of the world’s oil and nat­ur­al gas passed through the strait, but ship­ping through the wa­ter­way has been re­duced to a trick­le at best by Iran’s at­tacks since the start of the war.

In an ex­change with re­porters on Mon­day, the U.S. pres­i­dent re­it­er­at­ed his pub­lic op­po­si­tion to tolls be­ing charged in the strait. “I’m not go­ing to let them charge,” Trump said. “Any­body’s go­ing to charge, we’ll charge.”

The re­gion­al of­fi­cials said ne­go­ti­a­tions are still un­der­way and that the fi­nal agree­ment could take a dif­fer­ent form, with any deal linked to lift­ing the U.S. block­ade on Iran’s ports.

US and Iran­ian of­fi­cials say progress is be­ing made

Iran­ian For­eign Min­istry spokesman Es­mail Baghaei said Tues­day that Tehran’s talks with Oman were fo­cused on “es­tab­lish­ing safe in­bound and out­bound ship­ping lanes,” routes that “up­hold sov­er­eign rights while al­so ad­dress­ing the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­sid­er­a­tions of both Iran and Oman.”

“The fi­nal re­sults of these ne­go­ti­a­tions will be an­nounced once con­clud­ed,” he added, ac­cord­ing to Iran’s state-run IR­NA news agency.

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio con­firmed progress had been made in those talks, “but not fi­nal­i­ty yet.”

Ru­bio has pre­vi­ous­ly ruled out any deal that would give Iran con­trol over the strait, say­ing last month that would cre­ate a “very dan­ger­ous prece­dent” for oth­er parts of the world.

U.S. Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Scott Bessent told CN­BC that “there is a chance we may have a deal to­day or to­mor­row to open the strait and move to­wards a more nor­mal­ized po­si­tion in this con­flict.”

Trump said Mon­day that the U.S. was in talks with Iran, say­ing it was Tehran’s “last chance” to reach a deal and avoid an­oth­er U.S. mil­i­tary es­ca­la­tion. Iran has de­nied it is ne­go­ti­at­ing with the U.S., say­ing the talks are on­ly with Oman.

“The first phase is the open­ing of the straits. The sec­ond phase will be the de­nu­cleariza­tion,” Trump said. “And that will take a lit­tle while.” — CAIRO (AP)

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Sto­ry by ELE­NA BE­CA­TOROS, SAMY MAGDY and DAR­LENE SU­PERVILLE | The As­so­ci­at­ed Press
Ele­na Be­ca­toros con­tributed from Athens, and Dar­lene Su­perville con­tributed from Ran­cho Pa­los Verdes, Cal­i­for­nia. Amer Mad­hani and Matthew Lee in Wash­ing­ton con­tributed to this re­port.