by David Isaac\/JNS.org<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Islamic Republic refuses to resume talks with the United States so long as the latter continues its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, senior Iranian leadership said on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Pakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a call that the U.S. \u201cmust first remove operational obstacles, including the blockade,\u201d as a condition for \u201cresolving issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. Navy has redirected 37 vessels since April 13, the day its blockade of Iranian ports went into effect. On Saturday, a U.S. Navy helicopter from the guided-missile destroyer USS Pinckney<\/em> intercepted the M\/V Sevan<\/em> in the Arabian Sea. The Panama-flagged LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) tanker is among 19 \u201cshadow fleet\u201d vessels sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Treasury, U.S. Central Command said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pezeshkian said American maritime restrictions on Iran were a \u201cclear breach of the ceasefire understandings.\u201d Such measures, along with \u201cthreatening rhetoric\u201d from the U.S. administration, have increased Iran\u2019s doubts regarding America\u2019s commitment to the diplomatic process, he said, according to Iran\u2019s semi-official Mehr News Agency<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. put its blockade in place in response to Iran\u2019s own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. President Donald Trump explained on April 13: \u201cWe can\u2019t let a country extort the world, because that\u2019s what they\u2019re doing.\u201d He said the blockade would bring Tehran to the negotiating table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iran said it has no intention of lifting its blockade as long as the American blockade remained in place. On April 22, Iran fired on three ships in the strait. The attacks were carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to Iranian media, AP<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Washington \u201cmust first remove operational obstacles, including the blockade,\u201d as a condition for \u201cresolving issues,\u201d <\/strong>Iran\u2019s President Masoud Pezeshkian says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Sultan of Oman Haytham bin Tariq, where he discussed security in the Strait of Hormuz and the stalled talks between the U.S. and Tehran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before visiting Oman, Araghchi met with Pakistan\u2019s leadership in Islamabad. However, he departed on Saturday without meeting the U.S. delegation as had been expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shortly afterward, Trump canceled the trip to Pakistan of U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, given Araghchi had already left Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\u00a0canceling\u00a0their trip, Trump said that there was confusion within Iran\u2019s top ranks. \u201cNobody knows who is in charge, including them. … There is tremendous infighting and confusion within their \u2018leadership,\u2019\u201d he posted to Truth Social on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also on Saturday, Trump told media, referring to Iran\u2019s negotiating positions: \u201cThey gave us a paper that should have been better and\u2014interestingly\u2014immediately when I canceled it [the talks], within 10 minutes, we got a new paper that was much better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Sunday, after his visit to Oman, Araghchi returned to Islamabad. He is expected to again meet with Pakistan\u2019s top leadership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by David Isaac\/JNS.org The Islamic Republic refuses to resume talks with the United States so long as the latter continues its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, senior Iranian leadership said on Sunday. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Pakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a call that the U.S. \u201cmust first remove operational obstacles, including<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[913,178,460,179],"coauthors":[433],"class_list":{"0":"post-12424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-2","8":"tag-fuel-crisis","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-peace-talks","11":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12426,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12424\/revisions\/12426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12424"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=12424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n