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The U.S. paused an almost two-week run of strikes against Iran for a second night while the Islamic Republic signaled it was refraining from any retaliatory attacks and held talks with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz.
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After striking Iran for 13 days, the U.S. has apparently held off since late Friday without any explanation or announcement, raising questions over President Donald Trump’s next move. Iran’s army on Sunday said Tehran had halted its responses as a result.
“The U.S. may have devised other scenarios for the coming days, but the current situation is not what they desire,” spokesman Mohammad Akraminia told state TV. “If the Americans insist on continuing the war and airstrikes, the geography of the war will expand.”
The lull came as a weekend meeting between Iranian and Omani officials indicated a fresh attempt to resolve the crucial issue of shipping around Hormuz, a global chokepoint that’s been at the heart of the conflict the U.S. and Israel began in late February.
Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday whether Trump had decided against escalation, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said he “wouldn’t go that far at all.”
“The president is keeping all options on the table,” Waltz said. “What the president is doing right now, as we’ve seen all along, is giving the talks some space.”
The ambassador described talks as “ongoing, they’re happening at every level,” from discussions on technical issues to “the highest level” of the Iranian and U.S. leadership. He didn’t elaborate.
With traffic in the crucial Hormuz waterway essentially paralyzed, skirmishes between Yemen’s Houthi militants and Saudi Arabia have also ratcheted up tensions linked to another one – the Bab el-Mandeb in the southern Red Sea.
The Iran-backed Houthis said they fired missiles and drones at facilities linked to oil giant Saudi Aramco in the port towns of Jizan and Yanbu on Saturday. There was no immediate confirmation from the Saudi government or Aramco.
Saudi authorities briefly issued emergency warnings, before saying the danger had passed. A Saudi-led coalition responded by striking Houthi military positions later Saturday, according to Yemen TV, a channel affiliated with the country’s internationally recognized government.
The escalation in the Red Sea compounds an already severe squeeze on regional energy flows caused by the near-total stoppage of traffic via Hormuz, previously the conduit for a fifth of global crude supplies.
On Friday, the Saudi-led coalition struck the port from which the Houthis’ maritime assaults in the Red Sea typically originate. The Houthis also announced they would blockade Saudi ports and attacked three Saudi-linked oil tankers in the sea.
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Any sustained disruption to Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea export routes, through which it’s sending millions of barrels of oil a day as a workaround, mainly from Yanbu, would likely push up crude prices even more.
Brent crude has soared around 27% in the past two weeks as U.S.-Iran clashes worsened and the Houthis effectively opened a second front in the war. The global benchmark closed on Friday at $96.78 a barrel.
Trump, who’s increasingly frustrated with Tehran for refusing to reopen Hormuz, said late Friday the U.S. is “locked and loaded” for major strikes on Iran. He added he had not made a decision on whether to go ahead, after telling Axios a few days ago he was mulling a “massive attack.”
The New York Times reported Trump and his advisers have decided to hold off plans to escalate the U.S. strikes for now, in part over concerns that the war could drain the already-diminished stores of Patriot anti-missile interceptors and other air defense weapons in the region.
Waltz on Sunday denied that, saying the U.S. military has everything it needs to conduct its campaign.
Trump has consistently said “he prefers a diplomatic solution, but he continues to retain all options if Iran continues terrorist activities in the Strait of Hormuz or against allies,” White House spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. It would be “wise for Iran to work toward a negotiated deal.”
The deputy foreign ministers of Iran and Oman met in Tehran on Friday and Saturday to discuss the management of maritime navigation in Strait of Hormuz, the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Telegram.
“The talks were constructive and some progress was made,” Baghaei said, without giving details. He said technical and political consultations were ongoing and there had been no change in the status of traffic through the strait.
The apparent new Houthi aggression in the Red Sea came despite a shaky truce between the Saudi kingdom and Yemen, which has been in a civil war for 12 years.
The Houthis survived a roughly seven-year bombing campaign led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and still control areas containing most of Yemen’s population of over 40 million people.
Iran is the main funder and sponsor of the Houthis, though the group is more autonomous than other proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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(With assistance from Tony Czuczka.)
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