Tehran says Iraq will face no restrictions in waterway, praising country\u2019s \u2018struggle\u2019 against the US.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 5 Apr 2026<\/span>5 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Iran has announced that Iraqi ships are free to pass the Strait of Hormuz, the latest sign of Tehran easing its stranglehold on the critical conduit for global energy supplies.<\/p>\n Iraq will be exempt from all restrictions in the strait, with controls only applying to \u201cenemy countries\u201d, Iran\u2019s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said in a statement on Saturday.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cWe hold profound respect for Iraq\u2019s national sovereignty,\u201d the military command said in the statement carried by the semi-official Tasnim news agency.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are a nation that bears the scars of American occupation, and your struggle against the US is worthy of praise and admiration.\u201d<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s announcement came as US President Donald Trump reiterated his demands for Tehran to make a deal or relinquish control of the waterway, warning in a social media post that \u201call hell\u201d would rain down within 48 hours otherwise.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters rejected Trump\u2019s demand, calling his threat a \u201chelpless, nervous, unbalanced and stupid action\u201d.<\/p>\n Iran has effectively blockaded the strait, which usually carries about one-fifth of global oil and liquified natural gas supplies, since the US and Israel launched their war on the country on February 28.<\/p>\n While maritime traffic has ticked up in recent weeks under a de facto toll booth system imposed by Tehran, it is still down more than 90 percent from normal levels, according to ship tracking data.<\/p>\n According to Lloyd\u2019s List Intelligence, there were 53 transits through the strait last week, the most since the war began, up from 36 the previous week.<\/p>\n On Friday, a French container ship and a Japanese-owned tanker crossed the strait in the first apparent transits linked to either country since the start of the conflict.<\/p>\n The collapse of shipping in the waterway has thrown a wrench in global energy markets, pushing up fuel prices and prompting authorities in many countries to roll out emergency energy conservation measures.<\/p>\n Brent crude, the\u00a0international\u00a0benchmark,\u00a0has hovered above\u00a0$109\u00a0a barrel\u00a0in recent days, with many analysts predicting prices to surge much higher\u00a0if the waterway is not unblocked soon.<\/p>\n Iraq\u2019s oil production, which provides most of Baghdad\u2019s revenues, has been hit especially hard by the war.<\/p>\n Iraq\u2019s Ministry of Oil announced last month that production had fallen to 1.2 million barrels a day, down from 4.3 million barrels, amid declining crude shortage capacity due to the effective halt of exports through the strait.<\/p>\n Iraq was the world\u2019s sixth-biggest oil producer in 2023, accounting for 4 percent of global supply, according to the US Energy Information Administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Tehran says Iraq will face no restrictions in waterway, praising country\u2019s \u2018struggle\u2019 against the US. Published On 5 Apr 20265 Apr 2026 Iran has announced that Iraqi ships are free to pass the Strait of Hormuz, the latest sign of Tehran easing its stranglehold on the critical conduit for global energy supplies. Iraq will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jp-1730786685-rotated.jpg?resize=96%2C96&quality=80)
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