Standoff between Iran and US continues as both impose blockades of critical shipping waterway
Iranian forces have seized two ships in the strait of Hormuz, as the US and Iran doubled down on imposing separate blockades of the critical shipping waterway that have choked global energy markets.
The standoff over the narrow waterway – through which about 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed through during peacetime – raised doubts about whether stalled peace negotiations would resume.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards forces said on Wednesday that their naval forces halted two ships attempting to cross the strait and brought them to shore.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval force this morning identified and stopped in the strait of Hormuz two violating ships,” the Guards said in a statement. “The two offending ships … were seized by the IRGC’s naval forces and directed to the Iranian coast.”
