Vessels will still be able to transit Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports, says CENTCOM; Iran warns any approaching military vessels will be breaching ceasefire.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 13 Apr 2026<\/span>13 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The United States military has announced it will begin blockading all Iranian ports on Monday, its latest move to exert pressure on Tehran after marathon peace talks in Pakistan concluded without a deal.<\/p>\n In a statement on Sunday evening, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the blockade would apply to \u201call maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports\u201d from 10am Eastern Time (14:00 GMT) on April 13. That includes \u201cvessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas\u201d, including those on the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n However, US forces \u201cwill not impede freedom of \u2060navigation for vessels transiting the Strait \u2060of Hormuz to and \u2060from non-Iranian ports,\u201d CENTCOM said, in an apparent scaling back from President Donald Trump\u2019s earlier threat to blockade the entire strait and pursue ships paying tolls to Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of questions here,\u201d said Al Jazeera\u2019s Heidi Zhou-Castro from Washington, DC, pointing to \u201cconflicting information\u201d coming out of the US side.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump said the blockade would target any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz. But CENTCOM is saying this would only target ships going to or from Iranian ports.\u201d<\/p>\n The price of US crude oil jumped 8 percent to $104.24 a barrel after the US blockade threat. Brent crude oil, the international standard, increased 7 percent to $102.29.<\/p>\n Iran has essentially taken control over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for the global energy market, since the US and Israel launched a war against the country on February 28. Traffic through the waterway has since slowed to a trickle, nearly paralysing about one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.<\/p>\n Iran has continued to move its own vessels through the strait, while allowing limited passage of ships from other countries. Iranian officials have discussed setting up a toll system after the fighting ends.<\/p>\n In a statement responding to Trump\u2019s blockade threat, Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said any approaching military vessels would be in breach of a US-Iran ceasefire \u2013 meant to be in effect until April 22 \u2013 and \u201cwill be dealt with severely\u201d.<\/p>\n The US-declared blockade appears to be triggered by the failure of the talks in Pakistan\u2019s capital, Islamabad, raising fears of renewed fighting.<\/p>\n Iranian officials blamed the US side for failing to reach a deal, with Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi saying US negotiators shifted the \u201cgoalposts\u201d and obstructed efforts when a memorandum of understanding was \u201cjust inches away\u201d.<\/p>\n Zohreh Kharazmi, an associate professor at the University of Tehran, said the US \u201cis not in a position to dictate\u201d to Iranians how to behave, or \u201cto choose which vessels may pass\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf this blockade becomes a contest between the resilience of the Islamic Republic and the resilience of global markets, it will not take long to see who is losing,\u201d she said, adding that Iran \u201cis ready for a prolonged war\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTechnically, they [the US] cannot control the situation. With Hollywood-style strategies, they cannot prevail in this battleground.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Vessels will still be able to transit Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports, says CENTCOM; Iran warns any approaching military vessels will be breaching ceasefire. Published On 13 Apr 202613 Apr 2026 The United States military has announced it will begin blockading all Iranian ports on Monday, its latest move to exert pressure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18706","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\/18706","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=18706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/2017-06-08T131939Z_1189275883_RC11B0FE7F20_RTRMADP_3_GULF-QATAR-JAZEERA-1714943623.jpg?resize=96%2C96&quality=80)
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