Irans military declared the Strait of Hormuz closed again on Saturday, April 18, hours after reopening it, Its military command said.\u00a0On Friday, April 17, Tehran declared the strait open after a ceasefire was agreed in Lebanon to halt Israels war with Hezbollah\u00a0The Strait usually carries a fifth of the worlds oil and liquefied natural gas and with Iran opening it, oil prices plunged.\u00a0After Iran reopened the waterway on Friday, President Donald Trump said the US blockade would remain in place until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100% complete.\u00a0With Trump insisting that a US naval blockade of Iranian ports would continue until a deal was concluded, Tehran threatened to shutter the strait once more.\u00a0Then, late on Saturday morning, citing a statement from military central command, Iranian state TV reported that control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous status and is under strict management and control of the armed forces, blaming the continued US blockade.\u00a0A spokesman for Irans Khatam al-Anbia central headquarters accused the United States of continuing acts of piracy and sea robbery under the pretext of what it calls a blockade.\u00a0The spokesman added that until the US ends restrictions on the free movement of vessels from Iran to their destinations and from elsewhere to Iran, the situation in the Strait of Hormuz will remain tightly controlled and unchanged from its previous status.\u00a0The announcement came as maritime tracking sites showed several ships passing through the narrow waterway, hugging close to Iranian territorial waters as instructed by Tehran and, with some of the ships broadcasting their identity as Indian or Chinese in an apparent attempt to show their neutrality.\u00a0The same sites showed that late on Friday, a number of ships began heading for the strait before suddenly turning back amid the uncertainty.\u00a0By 0900 GMT on Saturday, several ships had fully transited the strait in both directions, but at least two tankers headed eastwards from the Gulf towards India after loading in UAE ports appeared to have turned around and aborted their journeys.\u00a0The US and Iran are holding talks and making efforts to find a way to lasting peace as a ceasefire remains in place.\u00a0There are just four days remaining before the end of the two-week ceasefire in the US-Israeli war with Iran, launched by Washington and its ally on February 28.\u00a0Nevertheless, President Trump appeared convinced that a deal could be finished shortly.The post Iran military command closes Strait of Hormuz again appeared first on Linda Ikeji Blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Irans military declared the Strait of Hormuz closed again on Saturday, April 18, hours after reopening it, Its military command … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[37,33,36,35,34],"class_list":["post-24320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bollywood","tag-entertainment","tag-fashion","tag-hollywood","tag-nollywood"],"yoast_head":"\n