Iran tightens control of Hormuz after US calls off renewed attacks

Iran seized two ships in the Strait of Hormuz as it tightened its grip on the strategic waterway after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he was indefinitely calling off attacks, with no sign of peace talks restarting.



The status of a two-week-old ceasefire, due to expire earlier this week, remained unclear. In a sharp about-face hours after threatening renewed violence, Trump made what appeared to be a unilateral announcement on Tuesday that the U.S. would extend a ceasefire 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 Baqer Qalibaf said a full ceasefire 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 ceasefire," Qalibaf said on social media.