• Trump says ‘very good’ discussions held with Iran but warns against “blackmail”.
• Iran warns Strait of Hormuz may be limited if blockade stays.
• Pakistan, Egypt, optimistic ceasefire deal could come soon.
  

The crucial Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until the United States lifts its naval blockade on Iranian ports, Tehran said, as a top official warned that a final peace deal remained “far” off.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, said in a televised address that there has been “progress” in talks with Washington “but there are many gaps and some fundamental points remain.”

“We are still far from the final discussion,” said Ghalibaf, one of Tehran’s negotiators in the talks aimed at ending the war launched by Israel and the United States against the Islamic Republic.

A two-week ceasefire is set to end on Wednesday unless it is renewed.

US President Donald Trump said meanwhile that “very good conversations” were going on with Iran but warned Tehran against trying to “blackmail” the United States.

On Friday, Tehran had declared the Strait of Hormuz, which usually carries a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, open after a ceasefire was agreed in Israel’s war with Iran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This prompted elation in global markets and sent oil prices plunging, but with Trump insisting the blockade of Iranian ports would continue until a deal is struck to end the wider war, Tehran said it was shuttering the strait once more.

“If America does not lift the blockade, traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will definitely be limited,” Ghalibaf said.

Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to be seen since taking power, said meanwhile in a written message that Iran’s navy “stands ready” to defeat the United States.

Trump, speaking to reporters at a White House event, accused Iran of getting “a little cute” with its recent moves and warned Tehran not to try to “blackmail” Washington with its flip-flopping on the Strait of Hormuz.

“We have very good conversations going on,” the president said, adding that the United States was “taking a tough stand.”

‘Targeted’

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned that any attempt to pass through the strait without permission “will be considered cooperation with the enemy, and the offending vessel will be targeted.”

A handful of oil and gas tankers crossed the strait early on Saturday during the brief reopening, tracking data showed, but others retreated and tracking platforms showed hardly any vessels crossing the waterway by the late afternoon.

A UK maritime security agency said the Revolutionary Guards fired at one tanker, while security intelligence firm Vanguard Tech reported the force had threatened to “destroy” an empty cruise ship that was fleeing the Gulf.

In a third incident, the UK agency said it received a report of a vessel “being hit by an unknown projectile which caused damage” to shipping containers but no fire.

The Indian foreign ministry said it had summoned the Iranian ambassador in New Delhi to lodge a protest over a “shooting incident” involving two Indian-flagged ships in the strait.

French UN peacekeeper killed 

On the diplomatic front, Egypt, which has been involved in mediation efforts along with Pakistan, appeared optimistic on Saturday with Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty saying Cairo and Islamabad hoped to secure a final agreement “in the coming days.”

Two major sticking points in the talks have been Iran’s stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium and the future of the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump declared Friday that Iran had agreed to hand over its 440 or so kilograms of enriched uranium. “We’re going to get it by going in with Iran, with lots of excavators,” he said.

Iran’s foreign ministry has said the stockpile, thought to be buried deep under rubble from US bombing in last June’s 12-day war, was “not going to be transferred anywhere” and surrendering it “to the US has never been raised in negotiations.”

The Middle East war began on February 28 with a massive wave of US-Israeli surprise attacks on Iran, despite Washington and Tehran being engaged in negotiations at the time.

The conflict rapidly spread across the region, with Iran targeting neighbouring Gulf countries and Hezbollah dragging Lebanon into the conflict by launching rockets at Israel.

A French soldier was killed and three others wounded in an ambush on Saturday on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon that French President Emmanuel Macron blamed on Hezbollah, an accusation the group denied.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack in a statement and said an initial assessment by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) found it was carried out by Hezbollah.

Venezuela’s opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said on Saturday she had “no regrets” about symbolically handing over her Nobel Peace Prize to US President Donald Trump in January.

“There is a leader in the world, a head of state in the world who risked the lives of his country’s citizens for Venezuela’s freedom,” she told a news conference in Madrid.

Machado presented her Nobel prize to Trump when she met him in the White House just two weeks after he ordered US forces to attack Caracas and snatch Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

Trump, who has long coveted the award, is currently embroiled in the Middle East war he started with his ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with airstrikes on Iran at the end of February.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the peace prize, made clear after Machado handed her 2025 Nobel medal to Trump that the actual honour it represents “cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others”.

Machado said Trump’s military operation to snatch Maduro, who is currently detained in New York facing US drug charges, was “something we Venezuelans will never forget”.

“Consequently,” she said, “no, I have no regrets” about gifting her Nobel medal to Trump.

Machado, who was in hiding before leaving Venezuela in December to collect her Nobel prize in Oslo, said she was organising her return to the country in coordination with Washington.

Later, she told thousands of supporters at a gathering in Madrid that they should be preparing to go back home.

“Everything we have done over these long 27 years has been to prepare ourselves for a moment of reunion and of building a nation that will be free forever,” she said, referring to the period under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela’s opposition last week called for presidential elections.

Machado, who has not yet said if she would run in a future poll, was banned from running for president in the 2024 election that resulted in Maduro claiming a re-election victory that opposition groups say was rigged.

• Khamenei says Iran army defending its land, water.
• Says Iran exposed weakness, humiliation of hostile armies.
• US president warns Iran against “blackmailing.
  

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei warned Saturday that Tehran’s navy was ready to defeat the US and Israeli forces, as the foes sparred over the Strait of Hormuz.

In a series of posts on X, Khamenei said: “In the same way that the drones of Iran’s Army strike the US and the Zionist murderers like lightning, its valiant navy is also ready to inflict new bitter defeats on its enemies.”

His remarks came as Iran said it is tightening control over the strait, warning mariners that the key energy lifeline was again closed, while shipping sources said at least two vessels came under fire while attempting to transit the waterway.

The Iranian supreme leader said that their army is standing side by side with their comrades from the other armed forces, battling the two leading armies of “disbelief and Arrogance”.

“Islamic Army has exposed those armies’ weakness and humiliation to the world, he added. 

“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Army is now courageously defending the land, water, and flag that belong to it,” added Khamenei.

Uncertainty around war

Tehran’s renewed tough messaging caused fresh uncertainty around the Iran conflict, raising the risk that oil and gas shipments through the strait could remain disrupted just as Washington weighs whether to extend the fragile ceasefire.

Trump said the US was having “very good conversations” with Iran but that Tehran wanted to close the strait again. Iran could not blackmail the US, he said.

Maritime security and shipping sources said some merchant vessels had received radio messages from Iran’s navy saying no ships were allowed through the waterway, reversing Friday’s signs that traffic might resume.

Maritime trackers had earlier shown a convoy of eight tankers transiting the narrow passage in the first major movement of ships since the US-Israeli war on Iran began seven weeks ago.

Hours earlier, Trump had cited “some pretty good news” about Iran, declining to elaborate. But he also said fighting might resume without a peace deal by Wednesday, when the two-week ceasefire expires.

Iran had announced its temporary reopening of the Strait of Hormuz following a separate US-brokered 10-day ceasefire agreement on Thursday between Israel and Lebanon. Israel invaded parts of southern Lebanon after the Iran-allied Hezbollah militant group joined the fighting in early March.

But on Saturday, Iran’s armed forces command said transit through the strait had reverted to a state of strict Iranian military control, citing what it described as repeated US violations and acts of “piracy” under the guise of a blockade.

The spokesperson said Iran had earlier agreed, “in good faith,” to the managed passage of a limited number of oil tankers and commercial vessels following negotiations, but said continued US actions had forced Tehran to restore tighter controls on shipping through the strategic chokepoint.

US Central Command said in a statement that American forces were enforcing a maritime blockade of Iran, but did not comment on the latest Iranian actions.

No date for direct talks 

The war with Iran began on February 28 with a US-Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic. It has killed thousands, spread to Israeli attacks in Lebanon and sent oil prices surging because of the de facto closure of the strait.

Despite the initial movement of ships, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said no date had been set for the next round of negotiations, adding that a framework of understanding must be agreed first.

Pressure for a way out of the war has mounted as Trump’s fellow Republicans defend narrow majorities in Congress in the November midterm elections with US gasoline prices high, inflation rising and his own approval ratings down.

“The main thing is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon, and that supersedes everything else,” Trump said on Friday.

Trump also said he might end the ceasefire with Iran unless a long-term deal to end the war was agreed before it expires on Wednesday, adding that a US blockade of Iranian ports would continue.

There were no signs of preparations early on Saturday for talks in the Pakistani capital, where the highest-level US-Iran negotiations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution ended without agreement last weekend.

A Pakistani source aware of mediation efforts had said a meeting between Iran and the US could produce an initial memorandum of understanding, followed by a comprehensive peace agreement within 60 days.

Separately, a senior Iranian official said Tehran hoped a preliminary agreement could be reached in the coming days.

Oil prices fell about 10% and global stocks jumped on Friday on the prospect of marine traffic resuming through the strait. Despite that, hundreds of vessels and about 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Gulf awaiting passage through the waterway, shipping sources said.

At last weekend’s talks, the US proposed a 20-year suspension of all Iranian nuclear activity, while Iran suggested a halt of three to five years, according to people familiar with the proposals. Two Iranian sources have said there were signs of a compromise that could remove part of the stockpile.

The head of Russia’s state atomic energy company, Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev, said on Saturday that Rosatom was ready to help with the removal of enriched uranium from Iran, and that the company was closely following the progress of US-Iran talks.

— With additional input from Reuters