Iran Says Strait Of Hormuz Completely Open As Trump Keeps U.S. Blockade In Place

Iran’s position on the Strait of Hormuz and the status of the U.S. blockade remained central as Washington and Tehran moved through a sequence of ceasefire-linked diplomacy and maritime pressure.

“Four Scenarios for What Might Happen in the US-Iran Conflict - Author: Saeed Jafari - Role: American political analyst - Reading time: 7 minutes It is believed that the United States is discussing a second round of ceasefire talks with Iran, with a Pakistani delegation arriving in Tehran, the Iranian capital”

BBC

In a Friday statement carried by The New York Times, Iran’s foreign minister said the Strait of Hormuz was “completely open” for all commercial ships after a Lebanon cease-fire, while President Trump declared the U.S. blockade of Iran’s ports would remain in place.

BBC

The New York Times also reported that Iran and the United States were finalizing “a three-page memo” defining a “60-day period” to reach an agreement, according to “three senior Iranian officials.”

The same report said oil prices dropped after Iran’s announcement, and it quoted shipping executive Jerry Kalogiratos saying, “Assuming this holds, then I think it’s great news.”

Reuters and other reporting in the same source set the stage for the maritime dispute by describing how U.S. blockade enforcement began “on Monday,” and that U.S. forces had “completely halted economic trade going into and out of Iran by sea.”

NBC News said the U.S. military reported its blockade was “fully implemented” and that it had “turned back 10 ships since the blockade began Monday.”

In parallel, Iran’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, posted on X that the strait would be “completely open” for the “remaining period of cease-fire,” while U.S. officials and shipping analysts warned that access might still be constrained by routes and mines.

The diplomatic push described across outlets was tied to the failure of earlier talks and to competing interpretations of ceasefire terms, with Pakistan acting as a mediator and shuttle-diplomacy hub.

The Guardian reported that the U.S. and Iran were in “indirect talks aimed at extending the two-week ceasefire beyond its expiry on 22 April,” and it said “Pakistan’s army chief arrived in Tehran to continue mediation efforts.”

CBS News

The Guardian added that Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, denied the U.S. had “formally” requested an extension but said Washington remained “very much engaged in these negotiations.”

It also said “A second round of negotiations would “very likely” be held in Islamabad,” and that Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said “an exchange of messages between Washington and Tehran had continued even after 21 hours of ceasefire talks in Islamabad had broken up.”

BBC described the initial Islamabad talks as ending “without any progress,” and it framed the April 8 ceasefire as a “tactical pause” because of “considerable ambiguity from the start.”

BBC quoted Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, saying “the chances of reaching an agreement had been virtually nil from the start.”

In the same BBC analysis, Hamid Reza Azizi told BBC Persian that “both sides want to use their options and methods of pressure to influence the other without entering a full-scale war.”

Iran’s internal debate over the Hormuz announcement and the negotiation process surfaced through hard-line media criticism and statements by figures close to the IRGC, while U.S. officials and lawmakers framed the blockade and the ceasefire in political terms.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that Iranian media close to the IRGC criticized what they said was the “silence” of Iranian officials regarding reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and it quoted Fars demanding officials justify their “silence” and writing: “Iranian society is plunged into a state of confusion.”

The same report said Tasnim criticized Abbas Araqchi’s post on X as “bad and incomplete and a complete bad taste in information dissemination,” and it quoted Tasnim calling on the Foreign Ministry to “reconsider” its decision.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also quoted Nizam Mousavi, a media figure close to the IRGC, posting: “Gentlemen! Say something!” and adding that “The meaning of people's trust in negotiating officials does not mean that we disregard public opinion.”

On the U.S. side, NBC News quoted President Donald Trump saying the war was “very close to over,” while also reporting that Iran threatened to block shipping from the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman and the Red Sea if the U.S. continued its blockade and “creates insecurity for Iranian commercial ships and oil tankers.”

In the U.S. political arena, NBC News included statements from Bernie Sanders and Sen. Patty Murray about votes to block arms sales, with Sanders saying: “Today, more than 80% of the Democratic caucus stood with the American people and voted to block U.S. military aid to Netanyahu and his horrific, illegal wars.”

It also quoted Sen. Chris Coons saying, “We must keep contending with an Iranian regime that has been attacking us and our partners around the world.”

While multiple outlets described the same core sequence—Hormuz reopening language, U.S. blockade continuation, and renewed negotiations—each framed the meaning differently, from optimism about passage to skepticism about transparency and the credibility of commitments.

The New York Times emphasized the reopening message, reporting that Iran’s foreign minister said the Strait of Hormuz was “completely open” and that oil prices dropped soon after the announcement, while also noting that uncertainty remained after “hard-line news outlets in Iran” said there would still be restrictions on marine traffic.

CNN

It also quoted shipping executive Jerry Kalogiratos saying, “Assuming this holds, then I think it’s great news,” and it included a caution from Martin Navias that Araghchi’s statement should be treated “somewhat cautiously,” because it specified a route close to Iran’s coast.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, by contrast, focused on Iranian hard-line criticism of the announcement, quoting Fars’s demand for explanations and Tasnim’s complaint that the post was “bad and incomplete.”

BBC’s analysis treated the initial negotiation failure as a structural problem, saying the ceasefire had “considerable ambiguity from the start” and that differences in interpreting terms deepened distrust.

Mondoweiss framed the same negotiation period as lacking seriousness, writing that “the very fact that the headline was that there had been no “breakthrough” in just one day displayed a fundamental lack of seriousness.”

The Guardian presented the diplomacy as active and mediated, describing Pakistani officials shuttling between Tehran and other regional capitals and quoting Karoline Leavitt saying “Nothing is official until you hear it from us here at the White House.”

The stakes described by the sources were both immediate—shipping routes, mine clearance, and blockade enforcement—and longer-term, centered on Iran’s nuclear program and the terms of any deal.

The New York Times reported that tanker traffic slowed to a trickle after Iran began attacking ships early in a war, causing a shortage of oil and gas in world markets, and it said that before the war “around 130 ships a day passed through the strait.”

Mondoweiss

It also described mine-related uncertainty, noting that shipping analysts said vessels would have to return to two main lanes and that “for shipowners to use the lanes, they would have to be certain that they are free of mines,” while U.S. officials said Iran had not been able to locate all mines and lacked the capability to remove them.

The New York Times added that on Friday Trump said, “with the help of the United States, Iran “has removed, or is removing, all sea mines!””

NBC News said U.S. forces had “completely halted economic trade going into and out of Iran by sea” and that it had “turned back 10 ships,” while also reporting Iran’s armed forces threatened to block shipping if the U.S. continued its blockade.

On the nuclear track, اليـوم السابع said Washington proposed releasing “$20 billion” of Iran’s frozen funds in exchange for Tehran giving up its stockpile of enriched uranium, and it reported Washington sought to control “about 2,000 kilograms of enriched uranium.”

BBC’s scenario analysis warned that the announced policy of blocking the Strait of Hormuz “raises the risk of confrontation,” and Mondoweiss described an option of leaving the ceasefire in place without an agreement so that “the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked.”