Iran: No Progress on Deal with U.S. to Reopen Strait of Hormuz
Iran says efforts to revive its interim peace deal with the United States have stalled, leaving the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical oil chokepoint, effectively blocked and crude prices exposed to fresh volatility.
A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Tuesday there had been no progress on talks to revive the memorandum of understanding reached in June and define a timeframe to implement its commitments, leaving Tehran and Washington at loggerheads over a permanent end to the Gulf war.
The comments came after renewed attacks on shipping in the region and as U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday that the U.S. has “total control” over the strait. Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority countered that the waterway remains closed until its conditions are met. Trump, on Truth Social, described Iran as “all talk and no action, the Bully of the Middle East No Longer.”
The June 17 deal, signed by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, had declared an immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts. It quickly unravelled, with Trump declaring it “over” on July 7 and Iran’s foreign ministry calling it suspended a week later.
At the heart of the deadlock is a blame trade. Washington accuses Tehran of failing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as agreed. Tehran says Washington reneged on lifting its blockade of Iranian ports and releasing frozen assets.
“One of the issues that is being discussed via mediators is the U.S. returning to the interim agreement and defining a time frame for implementing the commitments. There has been absolutely no progress on this issue,” the source said.
The source also dismissed reports of an extension of the deal’s initial 60-day window to reach a final agreement on Tehran’s nuclear programme and sanctions relief, saying there was “no talk of an extension because, from Iran’s perspective, there is no period that began and therefore nothing to extend.”
For markets, the implication is sustained supply risk. The Strait handled about a fifth of global oil and LNG flows before the war that began with U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran on February 28. Benchmark Brent, which surged to $126 per barrel in April, its highest since 2022, was trading around $88 on Wednesday, with WTI near $83, after choppy trading triggered by Tuesday’s shipping incidents.
Mediators have floated a 10-day de-escalation to salvage the MOU, but with thousands already killed in the wider conflict, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, and Iranian strikes hitting U.S. assets across Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, investors are pricing in prolonged disruption rather than a near-term reopening. #Iran: No Progress on Deal with U.S. to Reopen Strait of Hormuz# Iran Sets Steep Conditions for Reopening Strait of Hormuz
