Shipping disruption in Hormuz deepens as Iran war enters its 11th day
\nTEHRAN
\nIran\u2019s foreign minister said Tuesday that talks with the United States were not on the agenda as their war entered its 11th day.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think talking with the Americans would be on our agenda anymore,\u201d Abbas Araghchi told PBS News, saying Tehran had a \u201cvery bitter experience\u201d during previous negotiations with the US.
\nOn February 28, the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran that killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggered a war that has spread across the Middle East.
\nThe Israeli and US attacks took place two days before Washington and Tehran were scheduled to hold talks following three prior rounds of negotiations. Omani mediators in those discussions had said there was \u201csignificant progress\u201d in the talks.
\nIran has responded to the US-Israeli attacks with drone and missile strikes targeting Israel and US interests across the region.
\nShipping traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20 per cent of the world\u2019s crude oil usually transits, has been severely disrupted.
\nIranian forces have repeatedly targeted oil tankers passing through the strategic waterway since the war began.
\nIn the interview with PBS News, Araghchi insisted that Iran was acting in \u201cself-defence\u201d. \u201cWe are prepared, we have been prepared to continue attacking them with our missiles as long as needed and as long as it takes,\u201d he said. Late Monday, Iranian deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said some countries in the region and elsewhere had reached out to Iran to push for a ceasefire.
\n\u201cChina, Russia and France, and even some countries in the region, are in contact with us,\u201d he told state TV. \u201cSome of them are willing to do something to stop this war or establish a ceasefire.\u201d
\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron said France and its allies are preparing a \u201cdefensive\u201d mission to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
\nGharibabadi said Iran \u201cdid not start the aggression and the war\u2026 we are defending ourselves\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shipping disruption in Hormuz deepens as Iran war enters its 11th day TEHRAN Iran\u2019s foreign minister said Tuesday that talks with the United States were not on the agenda as their war entered its 11th day. \u201cI don\u2019t think talking with the Americans would be on our agenda anymore,\u201d Abbas Araghchi told PBS News, saying …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":94929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94931,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94919\/revisions\/94931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}