Cargo ship reports projectile strike in Strait of Hormuz as US, Iran dispute talks

A cargo ship reported being struck by an unidentified projectile early Tuesday in the Strait of Hormuz, as the United States and Iran offered sharply conflicting accounts of whether negotiations between them had resumed. The vessel reported the incident at about 2 a.m. local time while sailing 37 kilometers northeast of Al Khasab, Oman, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. The British maritime monitoring agency said the ship had been “hit by an unknown projectile,” but released no further details about the vessel, including its name, flag or cargo. It also did not immediately say whether anyone had been injured or how badly the ship was damaged. Al Khasab lies at the northern tip of Oman’s Musandam Peninsula, which extends into the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow passage at the entrance to the Persian Gulf is one of the world’s most important energy routes. Before the war, roughly one-fifth of global oil and natural gas supplies passed through it. Traffic through the waterway has been largely halted since Iran began attacking commercial shipping following the outbreak of war in February. The U.S. has also imposed a blockade on Iranian ports in and around the strait. US, Iran contradict each other over negotiations The reported strike came as U.S. President Donald Trump said Washington and Tehran had resumed talks aimed at ending the months-long conflict. Trump made the claim Monday, a day after saying he had canceled major military strikes he had threatened against Iran. He said Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had urged him not to carry them out. “Whether Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking,” Trump said. Iran rejected that account. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Tehran was not conducting negotiations with the U.S. and was speaking only with Oman. He said those discussions focused on establishing a safe route for vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump responded angrily, arguing that Iran had sought the talks and was now publicly denying they were taking place. “Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous!” he wrote on Truth Social. “They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg,’ talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman’,” he wrote. The conflicting claims added to uncertainty over efforts to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping.