The US military said that no ships slipped through a naval blockade targeting vessels headed to or from Iran in the first 24 hours of the restrictive measure, while tracking-service data indicated that a few Iran-linked ships exited the Strait of Hormuz during that time period.
"During the first 24 hours, no ships made it past the US blockade and 6 merchant vessels complied with direction from US forces to turn around to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman," the US Central Command, which is responsible for operations in the region, said in a post on X.
"The blockade is being enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman," CENTCOM said. "U.S. forces are supporting freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports."
Data from ship tracking services listed at least four ships, two of which had recently called at Iranian ports, that had passed or were passing through the 30-kilometer-wide Strait of Hormuz in the hours after the blockade came into force at 3 p.m. UTC on April 13.
A Liberian-flagged ship that had delivered corn to the Iranian port of Bandar Imam Khomeini passed Iran's Larak Island in the strait a few hours after that, and a Comoros-flagged tanker that was carrying methanol and had left the Iranian port of Bushehr on March 31 exited the strait around the same time, the AFP news agency reported, citing data from Kpler.
Also citing tracking services, Reuters separately reported that three Iran-linked vessels that transited the strait were not headed for Iranian ports and were not affected by the blockade. Two of the three vessels are under US sanctions and one of those two is Chinese-owned, Reuters reported.
US President Donald Trump ordered the blockade after US-Iranian peace talks in Islamabad on April 11-12 failed to produce an agreement to end the war, which began with US and Israeli air strikes on Iran on February 28. Washington and Tehran agreed to a two-week cease-fire on April 7.
Trump suggested on April 14 that negotiations could resume in Islamabad in the next couple of days.
"You should stay there, really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we're more inclined to go there [than to another location]," an Islamabad-datelined story in the New York Post quoted Trump as saying.
Media reports earlier in the day said Pakistan was seeking to facilitate a new round of talks later this week. Those reports followed an interview in which US Vice President JD Vance raised the prospect of further meetings by saying "a lot of progress" was made at the April 11-12 talks.
"The ball is in the Iranian court," Vance added.
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Trump Says US-Iran Talks Could Resume 'Over The Next 2 Days,'Official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted the country's president, Masud Pezeshkian, as again blaming Washington for the failure of the talks during a conversation with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, on April 14. But he also said that "diplomacy is the preferred path to resolving disputes," according to IRNA.
Macron said he had urged Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump, in separate calls, to renew talks.
'Record' Oil Prices
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the US blockade "dangerous and irresponsible."
Guo Jiakun said it would "escalate tensions, undermine the existing fragile cease-fire agreement, and further endanger the safety of navigation through the strait."
Also on April 14, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said global oil demand would shrink more than at any time since the Covid-19 pandemic amid the "most severe supply shock in history" owing to the Iran war.
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Russia's Lavrov Visits Beijing As China Steps Up Iran War DiplomacyThis has been caused by Iranian attacks and threats to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, that have almost completely closed a route that usually carried 20 percent of global oil supply.
Tehran's near-total closure of the strait followed the US and Israeli air strikes on Iran in February. It has continued despite the cease-fire that began on April 8.
"It remains unclear whether the cease-fire will turn into a lasting peace and a return to regular shipping flows through the Strait of Hormuz. With oil-importing nations scrambling to source replacement barrels from an increasingly shrinking pool of supply, physical crude oil prices surged to record levels," the IEA said.
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The Air Strikes Have Paused, But Iranians Worry About What Comes NextAmong measures taken to boost global oil supply was a US decision to grant a temporary waiver to sanctions on Russian oil, introduced after Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
That waiver was due to expire on April 11, but there is no indication of whether or not it has been extended, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
"There have been no statements about this," he told journalists.
Later on April 14, separate talks will be held in Washington between Israel and Lebanon, focusing on Israel's ongoing campaign against Iran's Lebanese proxy force, Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is both a militant group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon. It is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, although the European Union has only blacklisted its armed wing.
It will not be at the talks and has denounced them.
Tehran says this conflict should also be covered by the wider cease-fire, but Washington says it is separate. It began when Hezbollah attacked Israel on March 2 in response to the air strikes on Iran.