Diplomacy stalls as Iran shows off its control over Strait of Hormuz

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - DUBAI — Iran tightened its grip over the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday after the collapse of peace talks that Washington had hoped would open the world's most important shipping corridor.
Vice Speaker of Parliament Hamidreza Hajibabaei said the first revenue from a toll that Iran was now collecting from ships using the strait had been transferred to the central bank's account. He gave no further detail about who had paid it, when or how much.
Iran fired on three ships in the Strait of Hormuz and seized two of them on Wednesday, intensifying its attacks in the strategic waterway. The attacks came less than a day after US President Donald Trump extended a fragile truce while maintaining a US blockade of Iranian ports.
State television broadcast video footage of its commandos storming a huge cargo ship overnight Wednesday.
The video showed masked troops pulli up in a grey speedboat alongside the MSC Francesca, climbing a rope ladder to a shell door in the hull and jumping through brandishing rifles.
The footage, presented with an action-movie-style ‌soundtrack and no commentary, also included views of another ship, the Epaminondas.
Iran claimed to have captured both on Wednesday, accusing them of trying to cross the strait without permits.
Iranian media said the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas were being escorted to Iran. The US had earlier seized two Iranian vessels as the ceasefire talks were due to take place in Pakistan, prompting Tehran to pull out of the second round of high-stakes negotiations.
Technomar, the management company behind the Liberian-registered Epaminondas vessel, said it was “approached and fired upon by a manned gunboat” off the coast of Oman. It said the ship's bridge was damaged.
A second cargo ship came under fire hours later, with no report of damage, though it was then stopped in the water. No injuries to the crews of either vessel were reported.
Panama condemned what it called an “illegal seizure” of its flagged vessel, adding that the attack represented a “serious attack” on maritime security.
The IRGC attacked a third ship, identified as the Euphoria, which had become “stranded” on the Iranian coast, Iranian media reported, without elaborating.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the seizures did not violate the terms of the truce because the vessels “were not US or Israeli”.
Iran's judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said the merchant vessels attacked in the strait had "faced the law". Iranian speedboats and marine drones were sheltering in sea caves off an island near the mouth of the strait and keeping the US Navy from approaching.
Iran, which has effectively blocked the strait to ships apart from its own since the United States and Israel launched the war in February, has been left in apparent control of the waterway since last-ditch peace talks were called off on Tuesday, hours ⁠before a two-week ceasefire expired.
Tehran says it will not consider opening the strait, normally the route for a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas, until the US lifts a blockade of Iran's own shipping, which Washington imposed during the ceasefire and Tehran calls a violation of that truce.
The US military has intercepted at least three Iranian-flagged tankers in Asian waters and is redirecting them away from their positions near India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, shipping and security sources said on Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump rescinded threats to restart attacks on Iran in the ceasefire's final hours on Tuesday, but has refused to lift the blockade. There has been no formal extension of the ceasefire, and no plans have been announced for further talks.
Iranians, who endured six weeks of US and Israeli bombardment before the ceasefire on April 8, described a nerve-wracking environment under the threat of renewed warfare.
Pakistan, which hosted the only peace talks of the war earlier this month and had been preparing to host a second round before it was called off on Tuesday, was still in touch with both sides, a Pakistani government source said.
The Pakistani source said Iranian officials were still declining to commit to sending a delegation, citing the US blockade and other reasons.
"Yesterday, diplomats from various countries met different Pakistani ‌authorities and asked ⁠about the expected dates for the next round of talks, but they could not give them any timeframe, clearly," the Pakistani source said.
Iran has said publicly it is willing to talk in principle but that the US blockade and inconsistent demands from Washington made it impossible to commit.
"You did not achieve your goals through military aggression and you will not achieve them by bullying either," the head of Iran's negotiating team, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, wrote on social media on Wednesday. "The only way is recognizing the Iranian people's rights."
Iranian officials have demanded the full disassembly of the US Navy’s blockade for talks to resume, but Trump insisted on Wednesday that the blockade will remain in place until Iran lifts its restrictions on maritime passage in the vital strait.
The stalemate in the strait has left markets whipsawed by mixed signals. The lack of ⁠a clear path to resolving the worst energy disruption in history sent oil prices climbing again, but with fighting on hold Wall Street share prices have zoomed to record highs.
On Thursday, shares were down in Japan, Hong Kong, Britain and Germany, but up in South Korea and flat in France. Futures markets forecast an easing on Wall Street from Wednesday's record close. Brent crude was up more than 1.5% at $103.50 a barrel.
The US president is continuing to claim successes in the war. Late Wednesday, Trump claimed that Iran had “respected” his request, and called off the executions of eight Iranian women who had participated and been arrested in anti-government protests in January.
“I very much appreciate that Iran, and its leaders, respected my request, as President of the United States, and terminated the planned execution,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Tehran called the whole issue a “fabrication” and a desperate attempt to “save face”, adding that the women were never going to be executed in the first place.
"Trump's empty-handedness in the battlefield has pushed him toward fabricating achievements from false news," the Iranian ‌judiciary's ⁠news agency, Mizan, said on Wednesday. — Agencies