Iran war live: Tehran says no date set for US talks, Hormuz Strait closed

US Vice President JD Vance has responded to People Leo’s comments, in which the Catholic Church leader sought to downplay his recent feud with Trump.

The pope had said earlier that a speech he made two days ago in Cameroon, decrying that the world was being “ravaged by a handful of tyrants”, was not aimed at Trump.

He also said the speech was misconstrued as an attempt to debate Trump, which he said was “not my interest at all”.

Vance, who is a Catholic Christian, welcomed the pope’s comments.

“I am grateful to Pope Leo for saying this,” Vance wrote in a post on X. “While the media narrative constantly gins up conflict–and yes, real disagreements have happened and will happen–the reality is often much more complicated. Pope Leo preaches the gospel, as he should, and that will inevitably mean he offers his opinions on the moral issues of the day.

“The President–and the entire administration–work to apply those moral principles in a messy world. He will be in our prayers, and I hope that we’ll be in his.”

Trump had called Pope Leo “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy” after the pontiff criticised the US-Israel war on Iran, including by saying that anyone who is a disciple of Christ “is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs”.

If you look at the terms released by the US State Department shortly after the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon was announced, it allows Israel to act in what it defines as self-defence.

And Israel defines that fairly broadly, so not just imminent and ongoing threats, but even planned ones.

So Israeli forces have continued demolitions in Lebanese villages, along with artillery and machinegun fire targeting communities on or near the front line – or the “yellow line” that the Israeli military says it has established inside southern Lebanon.

They have also claimed two air strikes today.

The first of those was against a group they identified as Hezbollah fighters that they said were approaching Israeli troops on the “yellow line”. That, of course, implies that these people hadn’t crossed the line and were in fact north of it.

The second one, they said, targeted men who were entering a tunnel inside the “yellow line”.

So Israel seems to be enforcing this in the same way as the “yellow line” in Gaza, through gunfire or indeed air strikes as we have seen in the last 24 hours. And Israel is arguing that these do not violate the terms of the ceasefire.

Most of the crude passing through the Strait of Hormuz goes to Asian countries, and its closure is hitting their economies hard.

Bangladesh, which imports roughly 95 percent of its fuel, is facing a deepening energy crisis. Long queues have formed outside petrol stations, universities across the country have been shut, and the government has cut working hours to conserve energy.

Frustration is also growing over the toll the US-Israel war on Iran is taking on daily life.

At one petrol station in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, Abdul Goni, a 48-year-old long-distance coach driver, said he had been waiting for about five and a half hours to have his bus refuelled, delaying scheduled weekend departures from the popular beach town to other districts.

Drivers also complained that the amount of fuel allocated to each vehicle was insufficient for long-distance journeys.

“We are in deep trouble with this crisis. This is a daily woe for us,” Mohammad Irfat, a 17-year-old college student, told the Reuters news agency. “Only 2 litres [68fl oz] of fuel are not enough. I came from Inani [some 40km or 25 miles away]. The return trips drain all my fuel. Almost 1 to one-and-a-half litres [33 to 50fl oz] of fuel is burned.”

US Central Command says there are more than 12 warships involved in the US blockade of Iranian ports.

They say there are more than 10,000 airmen, Marines and soldiers, as well as lots of aircraft flying overhead.

They’ve been pretty productive on their social media channels, putting out videos and photos and getting the word out about their blockade. And they say they’ve already turned back 23 ships that are either Iranian or linked to Iran and sent them back through the Strait of Hormuz.

There have also been media reports that this blockade might widen.

Remember that the US blockade is only on ships that they say are going from Iranian ports or are linked to Iran. But there have been reports that they might now seek to widen it to Iranian-linked ships that are elsewhere in the world.

This is something that the US has done before with Venezuela, and it managed to board and interdict vessels that it thought were carrying Venezuelan oil and that were under sanctions in other oceans. There’s a video of one such interdiction in the Indian Ocean.

What that involves is specialised units of Marines or Navy Seals boarding that ship, often from helicopters, and then, occasionally, even driving that vessel to a port that they want to take it to. So it’s a complicated operation that includes different branches of the US government.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, has said that talks with the US cannot happen until the two sides agree on a shared “framework”.

He stressed that the two sides have not reached a point where they can meet because of issues on which Washington has taken a “maximalist” position.

Watch below:

Turkiye wants to extend a natural gas supply contract with Iran, which is due to expire in the coming months, but the talks have not yet begun because of the war, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has said.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, Bayraktar said Ankara remains interested in securing Iranian gas to ensure supply continuity.

“There’s no negotiation right now, but we might sit and discuss a potential extension,” Bayraktar told reporters.

The AFP quoted Bayraktar as saying that Turkiye faces no short- or medium-term supply risks, despite the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The minister added that the developments involving the key waterway once again highlight the importance of energy diversification.

A ceasefire may be in place, but in the Strait of Hormuz, the confrontation continues.

There, Iran and the US are still engaging directly, not through their strikes, but through control, pressure, and daily encounters at sea. Iran has reimposed strict controls over the waterway. It says the limits on shipping are in retaliation for the US blockade of Iranian ports and accuses the US of breaching its commitments.

Since then, at least two commercial vessels have reported coming under fire when they attempted to cross on Saturday.

At the centre of this strategy are small, fast-attack crafts operated by the IRGC. Hiding in tunnels along the coastline, many of these boats have survived the US strikes on Iran’s navy. They can deploy quickly, strike, and retreat to safety. Built for swarming tactics, they are difficult to track and target.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical maritime choke points. Twenty percent of global oil exports pass through the waterway, and although a convoy of eight tankers recently crossed, the first in weeks, Iran was quick to reassert control.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that US forces have targeted Iran’s naval assets and destroyed its mine-laying capabilities. Yet, these smaller boats continue to operate.

What we are seeing here is a shift in the war: from open conflict to controlled confrontation, concentrated in one of the world’s most sensitive waterways.

Earlier on Saturday, we heard President Trump say that Iran was getting ‘cute’ and that he wouldn’t allow it to blackmail the US. He made those remarks while saying negotiations are still ongoing. He said that the talks were going well.

I think he was trying to indicate that this [the closure of the strait] is perhaps a bump in the road rather than anything definitive.

You have to remember the order in which things happened.

First of all, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Twitter that they were going to open the Strait of Hormuz. Then, President Trump said, OK, thanks, but we’re going to continue our blockade. And then Iran said afterwards that if you’re going to continue the blockade, then we’re going to continue to close off the strait.

There was an order to the events. Iran’s declaration did not come out of nowhere.

Since then, though, President Trump has spent the day golfing. What he has done is call a meeting, according to the Axios outlet, in the Situation Room, which is a sort of basement under the West Wing of the White House, in which Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth and others gathered to try and think about what to do next.

What we don’t have so far is whether there’s going to be a second round in the negotiations, as was thought just a day or two ago, and whether they’re going to happen in Islamabad, Pakistan, as the first round did. There’s now about three days before the ceasefire ends.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has been speaking to Iranian media on the status of the ceasefire and the negotiations with Washington.

Here’s a summary of what he said:

• Iran does not trust the US and believes it may resume hostilities at any moment, so Iranian armed forces “in the field are fully prepared”.
• The Strait of Hormuz is under Iran’s control, and the US decision to blockade Iranian ports is “foolish” and “ignorant”.
• If the US does not lift the blockade, “traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will definitely be restricted”. Others cannot pass through the strait while Iran cannot.
• The ceasefire extends to Lebanon and Hezbollah. “The resistance front came to the aid of the Islamic Republic; therefore, establishing a ceasefire had to include them, and one of Iran’s conditions was a ceasefire in the region.”
• “We have always sought normalisation of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and we still do. If it has stopped now, it is because the ceasefire in Lebanon was not fully established.”
• “Negotiation is also a method of struggle to complete the field and assert the rights of the people present in the streets, and fulfil their demands.”

A maritime agency reported that a tanker was fired on by gunboats in the Strait of Hormuz.

The United ⁠Kingdom ⁠Maritime Trade Operations agency says it received a report ⁠of a tanker being fired upon by what it ‌said were two gunboats linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The vessel and ‌its crew were reported safe.

Watch below:

• Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says Tehran will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz unless the US stops blockading Iranian ports.
• Two Indian-flagged vessels have come under attack while crossing the strait, prompting New Delhi to summon Iran’s ambassador.
• US President Donald Trump insists that the naval blockade will remain in force until there is a deal, and warns that Washington will not be blackmailed by Iran.
• Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh says Tehran is not ready to hold a new round of face-to-face talks with the US because Washington refuses to abandon its “maximalist” demands.
• Israeli forces have created what they are calling a “yellow line” across southern Lebanon and have confirmed carrying out attacks despite a ceasefire.
• A French soldier with the UN peacekeeping force has been killed in southern Lebanon, with President Emmanuel Macron blaming Hezbollah for the attack. The armed group denied the claim.
• Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem says the truce between Lebanon and Israel cannot be “one-sided” and that fighters remain in the field, prepared to respond to Israeli aggression.

Hello, and welcome to our live coverage of the ceasefire in the United States and Israel’s war on Iran.

Stay with us for all of the latest news and analysis from across the Middle East and beyond.

You can find our updates from Saturday, April 18, here.