(Bloomberg) — Iran submitted its response to the latest US proposal to end 10 weeks of war as a series of incidents continues to threaten a shaky ceasefire.
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The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported on the latest response without giving any further details, and Tehran hasn’t yet given any public indication it would accept Donald Trump’s plan. The US president proposed that Iran permit passage through the Strait of Hormuz and Washington end its blockade on Iranian ports in the next month.
The US proposal implies Iran’s acceptance of ending the conflict, which has killed thousands of people across the Middle East and sent energy prices soaring. The two sides would still need to negotiate later a deal over Iran’s nuclear program, which remains a critical sticking point.
Trump had warned the US might “go a different route if everything doesn’t get signed up, buttoned up,” suggesting an expanded version of Project Freedom, the brief US effort to break Iran’s maritime stranglehold and escort ships through Hormuz. Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flowed through the waterway before the conflict began.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the war is “not over.” In an interview airing Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes, he said there is more work needed to dismantle Iran’s nuclear capability and to remove its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
Despite the ceasefire in place since April 8, a drone strike on Sunday briefly set a cargo vessel ablaze off Qatar in the Persian Gulf, marking the latest shipping attack in the region.
The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, both of which have come under attack from Iran in the past two months, said Sunday they had intercepted hostile drones.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi also warned the UK and France in a post on X that the presence of its warships in Strait of Hormuz will be met with a “decisive and immediate response from the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The conflict that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28 has upended oil and gas markets, with soaring fuel prices piling pressure on governments and consumers worldwide — including in the US ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, on Sunday warned it would take several months for the market to return to normal even if the Strait of Hormuz reopened immediately.
Should “trade and shipping remain curtailed by more than a few weeks from today, we anticipate the supply disruption to persist, and the market to normalize only in 2027,” Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser said in a statement.
As the crisis rolls on, the Gulf’s biggest economies have been adapting and finding ways to get at least some of their energy output to market.
Ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg showed Al Kharaitiyat, a tanker carrying Qatari liquefied natural gas, transited Hormuz this weekend. It marks Qatar’s first export out of the region since the crisis began and was bound for Pakistan — a major mediator in US-Iran peace discussions.
The shipment is part of Pakistan’s negotiations with Iran to let it obtain extra Qatari LNG cargoes and help meet urgent demand, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.
Meanwhile, Aramco and the UAE’s state oil company Adnoc are among firms that have moved crude cargoes through the strait since Iran effectively closed it, Bloomberg reported Friday.
Other Saudi exports have been redirected via pipeline to the Red Sea. Aramco reported a 26% jump in first-quarter profit on Sunday, following a war-induced rise in prices of oil and refined fuels, and as used this alternative route.
Brent crude, the global benchmark, edged higher to settle around $101 a barrel on Friday, though still notched a weekly drop of about 6%.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright signaled Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press that the US may give priority to reopening Hormuz over its demand for an end to Tehran’s nuclear program.
Asked about the possibility of an interim deal that might not fully address the nuclear issue, he said: “Certainly, that’s got to be possible.”
More related to the war:
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Iran denied a New York Times report of an oil slick around Kharg Island in the Gulf. The official Shana news agency cited an oil terminal official as saying there was no leakage in infrastructure, storage tanks, pipelines or vessels.
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Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei met a top military official and issued “new directives” to confront their enemies, according to another state news agency. There was no footage of Khamenei, who hasn’t been publicly seen or heard since his March appointment.
–With assistance from Sara Gharaibeh, Tony Czuczka, Angela Cullen and Eltaf Najafizada.
(Updates with Netanyahu interview, Iranian offical’s remarks starting in fifth paragraph.)
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