Iran seized two ships in the Strait of Hormuz, tightening its grip on the vital shipping lane after Donald Trump said he was indefinitely calling off attacks, with no sign of stalled peace talks resuming.
The status of a two-week-old cease-fire, due to have expired earlier this week, remained unclear. In a sharp about-face hours after threatening renewed violence, Trump made what appeared to be a unilateral announcement Tuesday that the U.S. would extend a cease-fire until it had discussed an Iranian proposal in peace talks to end the two-month-old war.
But Iranian officials did not say they had agreed to any extension of the truce and criticized Trump's decision to maintain the U.S. Navy blockade of Iran's trade by sea, itself considered by Iran an act of war.
Iran's parliament speaker and lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said a full cease-fire only made sense if the blockade was lifted.
Reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the slender chokepoint that carried a fifth of the world's oil trade before the war, was impossible with such a "flagrant breach of the cease-fire," Ghalibaf said on social media.
