Two ships from Iran ports pass Hormuz Strait despite US blockade

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Fertiliser shortages due to the Iran war are a pressing concern for developing countries, and gains from rising oil and gas prices for developing world producers are likely to be short-lived, the head of the United Nations trade agency said on Tuesday.

"The more immediate issue is fertiliser, because that then affects food security and food security is always the basis for stability," said Pamela Coke-Hamilton, executive director of the International Trade Centre (ITC), adding that oil and gas could be secured from other places, so the situation was "not as dire" even if price hikes were a problem.

Coke-Hamilton, whose agency focuses on promoting trade for developing countries, noted that a third of global urea would normally pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran and the United States are blockading.

"There are significant issues with respect to availability of fertilisers and also there's a timeline for agriculture in terms of ensuring you have enough for the next harvest, which is being missed now," she told Reuters in an interview.

The US military said Tuesday that it successfully stopped six ships from sailing out of Iranian ports during the first 24 hours of a naval blockade against the Islamic Republic.

Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for American forces in the Middle East, said more than 10,000 US troops, over a dozen warships, and dozens of aircraft are taking part in the mission.

"During the first 24 hours, no ships made it past the US blockade and six merchant vessels complied with direction from US forces to turn around to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman," CENTCOM 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," it added.

Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt will meet Turkey's top diplomat this week in Turkey for talks on regional matters, a ministry source told AFP on Tuesday.

"This is the third meeting of the four countries to discuss regional affairs, not specifically Hormuz," said the source, who wished to remain anonymous. The top diplomats are due to hold talks on the margins of an annual diplomacy forum in southern Turkey that opens on Friday.

The United States and Israel may have obstructed the path towards a future Iran-built nuclear bomb by severely damaging the Islamic Republic's nuclear and ballistic capabilities in recent attacks.

But they have not succeeded in seizing its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, key to any future negotiations between Washington and Tehran, experts and diplomatic sources told AFP.

But two European diplomatic sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed caution about the future of Iran's atomic ambitions.

Immediately following the June 2025 strikes, "we were told the programme had been set back by several years, before the figure was revised to just several months", one source noted.

"Iran is no longer a threshold power as it once was," an Israeli diplomatic source, who requested anonymity, told AFP.

A "threshold" state has the expertise, resources and facilities needed to develop a nuclear weapon on short notice should it choose to.

The source argued that, in addition to the infrastructure damage suffered, Iran's know-how "has been seriously undermined by the elimination of the scientists and officials" and the targeting of universities "where the data centres containing Iran's expertise were located".

A drone struck an Iranian Kurdish group on Tuesday, wounding three people, a party official told AFP, in the first such attack in northern Iraq since a fragile ceasefire took effect in the region.

Commander Mohammed Hakimi from the exiled Komala party blamed the attack on "Iran and its affiliated militias."

During the Middle East war, Iran repeatedly struck positions belonging to Iranian Kurdish exiled groups in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.

"A drone struck at 4:45 pm (1345 GMT) Camp Sordash", which belongs to the Komala party, Hakimi told AFP.

"Three Iranian Kurdish refugees were wounded, including a woman who is in a critical condition," Hakimi added.

The camp is located 40 kilometres west of the city of Sulaimaniyah.

US President Donald Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday that a second round of Iran talks could happen in Pakistan "over the next two days," after a first round ended at the weekend without a deal.

"You should stay there, really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we're more inclined to go there," Trump was quoted as saying in a phone interview with a Post reporter in Islamabad.

After saying in an initial call that talks were unlikely to return to Pakistan, the Post said Trump called back minutes later to say it was "more likely" they would go back to Islamabad because the country's army chief, Asim Munir, "is doing a great job".

The US blockade of Iranian ports involves more than 10,000 military personnel, more than a dozen warships and dozens of aircraft, US Central Command said on Tuesday.

"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 command said in a statement a day after the blockade announced by US President Donald Trump took effect.

"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. US forces are supporting freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports," it said. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Beijing on Tuesday and discussed the US-Iran conflict, the Ukraine crisis, and preparations for a meeting of the Chinese and Russian leaders later this year, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Russia and China should "continue to maintain strategic coordination on major international and regional issues," Wang said while noting the "highly volatile international situation and the intensified harms caused by unilateral hegemony."

The official Chinese summary did not elaborate on what the two foreign ministers discussed concerning Iran, Ukraine and the planned leaders' meeting.

US President Donald Trump criticised Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a political ally, in an interview published on Tuesday for her unwillingness to help in the Iran war.

"I'm shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong," he told Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday said Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington were a historic opportunity, and while every complexity would not be resolved in coming hours, he hoped the parties would begin to move forward. 

Lebanon's president expressed hope that direct talks on Tuesday in Washington with Israel would lead to an end of his country's suffering after war erupted again between Israel and Hezbollah last month.

"I hope that the meeting in Washington... will mark the beginning of the end of the suffering of the Lebanese people in general, and those in the south in particular," President Joseph Aoun said in a statement, adding that "stability will not return to the south if Israel continues to occupy its lands".

"The only solution lies in the Lebanese army re-deploying up to the internationally recognised border, and so being solely responsible for the security of the area and the safety of its residents, without the partnership of any other party," Aoun added.

The International Red Cross movement said Tuesday that a shipment of life-saving medical supplies and other aid had crossed the border into Iran, its first since the start of the war.

The shipment of medical supplies and other aid entered the country on Sunday, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

The truck convoy, which set off from the Turkish capital Ankara on Friday, marked "one of the first cross-border shipments of medical supplies" by any organisation since the conflict began with a barrage of Israeli and US strikes on Iran on February 28, IFRC spokesman Tommaso Della Longa told reporters in Geneva.

He said the IFRC had sent trauma kits, "designed to provide immediate, life-saving care".

"The operation is critical as humanitarian supply chains into Iran have been severely disrupted in recent weeks due to the conflict, making it increasingly difficult and more costly for essential medical and relief items to reach those in need," he said.

Della Longa said the IFRC aimed to bring in more trauma kits "in the next three weeks".

Foreign ministers from 17 countries, including the UK, Tuesday urged Israel and Lebanon to "seize this opportunity" ahead of talks between the two nations in Washington.

Britain's foreign ministry posted the ministers' joint statement saying "direct negotiations can pave the way to bring lasting security for Lebanon and Israel as well as the region".

Israel on Tuesday dismissed Italy's decision to suspend a defence agreement between the two countries, saying Rome's move would not have any impact on its security.

"We have no security agreement with Italy. We have a memorandum of understanding from many years ago that has never contained any substantive content. This will not affect Israel's security," foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein told AFP.

Serbia plans to jointly produce combat drones with Israel, in a bid to strengthen its defences and bolster exports of weapons and military equipment, the country's populist President Aleksandar Vucic said on Monday.

Last week, the Belgrade-based BIRN news website reported Serbia's SDPR weapons manufacturer wanted to open a drone manufacturing plant with Israel's Elbit Systems, which would have a 51 percent stake with Serbia holding the remainder.

Vucic said Serbia, which is seeking to bolster its drone manufacturing, "cannot make drones like Israel."

"We will be doing it together, it will be half-and-half, 50-50, and ... we will have the best drones in this part of the world," he told reporters during a visit to a military unit in Belgrade.

Baghdad's oil ministry said Tuesday it has "understandings" with the United States and Iran to reduce the impact of the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz on Iraqi oil exports.

The ministry did not elaborate or say when these reported understandings were reached.

Iraqi oil ministry spokesperson Saheb Bazoun told the Iraqi News Agency (INA), "there are understandings with the American and Iranian sides to circumvent the blockade imposed on the Strait of Hormuz, and with all parties to guarantee exports".

Iranian authorities have sentenced to death four more people, including a woman, over protests in January this year, several rights groups said on Tuesday.

The four were sentenced to death by a Tehran Revolutionary Court presided over by the notorious judge Imam Afshari after being convicted of carrying out actions on behalf of the United States, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), and Abdorrahman Boroumand Centre said in separate statements.

They had been accused of throwing concrete blocks from a residential building onto security forces in the capital. It was not immediately clear when the verdict was issued.

The four convicted were Mohammadreza Majidi-Asl and his wife, Bita Hemmati, along with two other men, Behrouz Zamaninejad and Kourosh Zamaninejad, who lived in the same Tehran building as the married couple.

Hemmati is believed to be the first woman to be sentenced to death over the protests.

The Abdorrahman Boroumand Centre said it also believed that Hemmati was the woman who appeared in a video broadcast on state television in January, being personally interrogated by judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei.

"The recording and broadcasting of forced confessions from defendants in an opaque process... constitutes a blatant violation of the defendant's rights," it said.

An Israeli airstrike on a police vehicle in Gaza City on Tuesday killed at least four people, including a child, health officials in the territory said, in the latest violence overshadowing a US-brokered ceasefire agreement.

Medics and witnesses said the attack at Nafaq Street in Gaza City set a police car ablaze and that residents and rescue workers rushed to search for possible casualties. It was unclear how many of the dead may have been policemen.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday he had spoken with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday and called for talks to restart between Washington and Iran and for a halt of any possible escalation.

He added in a post on social media platform X that the Strait of Hormuz must be reopened unconditionally as soon as possible.

"Under these circumstances, negotiations should be able to resume quickly, with the support of the key stakeholders," he said.

The Israeli military said Tuesday that overnight clashes between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah militants left 10 soldiers wounded in the strategically significant southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, which Israeli forces have encircled.

"Overnight, three IDF soldiers were severely injured, and an additional soldier was moderately injured in a close-quarters encounter" in Bint Jbeil, it said.

"In the incident, six additional soldiers were lightly injured," the military added.

Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said his country is seeking "peace and normalisation" with Lebanon, ahead of talks between officials from both nations in Washington on Tuesday.

"We want to reach peace and normalisation with the state of Lebanon... Israel and Lebanon don't have any major disputes between them. The problem is Hezbollah," Saar said at a press conference with visiting Czech Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Petr Macinka.

Saar said Hezbollah attacked Israel on March 2 "against the will of the Lebanese government".

"The problem for Israel's security is the problem for Lebanon's sovereignty," Saar said.

"It's Hezbollah, it's the same problem. And this problem needs to be addressed in order to move to a different phase."

Two ships from Iran ports pass Strait of Hormuz despite the US blockade: tracker

Iran is weighing pausing its shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to avoid derailing talks with the US, Bloomberg News has reported.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a phone call with UAE counterpart Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The ministers discussed the situation in the Persian Gulf following US-Iran talks in Islamabad and called for an immediate, permanent ceasefire and continued diplomatic efforts.

There have been no discussions between Qatar and Iran over the payment of funds to stop Iranian attacks on Qatar, and any suggestions that such discussions took place are untrue, the Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.

"There is a high level of coordination with Pakistan and the United States, our demands are being raised through these channels," Majed Al-Ansari said in a media briefing. 

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday that her government had decided to suspend the automatic renewal of a defence agreement with Israel, given ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.

"In light of the current situation, the government has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defence agreement with Israel", Meloni was quoted as saying by several Italian news agencies, without giving details of the deal.

Meloni was speaking in Verona, on the sidelines of a wine industry fair.

British finance minister Rachel Reeves said on Tuesday she was "very frustrated and angry" over what she said was the United States' failure to have a clear exit plan or objectives for the war in Iran, according to the Mirror newspaper.

"This is a war that we did not start. It was a war that we did not want. I feel very frustrated and angry that the US went into this war without a clear exit plan, without a clear idea of what they were trying to achieve," Reeves told the newspaper.

"And as a result the Strait of Hormuz is now blocked," she added.

European airlines have urged the European Union to step in with emergency measures to tackle the repercussions of the war on Iran, including widespread airspace closures and mounting concerns over jet fuel shortages, a document seen by Reuters showed.

The industry group Airlines for Europe (A4E) has requested that the EU introduce a raft of crisis response measures, including EU-level monitoring of jet fuel supplies, a temporary suspension of the EU's carbon market for aviation, and scrapping certain aviation taxes, according to the document.

The aviation sector has been hit by airspace closures since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on 28 February, with the European Union ⁠Aviation Safety Agency banning European airlines from operating in the airspace of several Gulf countries, including the UAE and Qatar, until 24 April.

The Israeli military said Tuesday that a soldier had been killed in Lebanon, the first since a US-Iran temporary truce came into force that Israel insisted does not include the country where it is fighting Tehran-backed Hezbollah.

"Sergeant Major (Res.) Ayal Uriel Bianco, aged 30, from Katzrin, a firefighting vehicle driver in the 188th Brigade, fell during combat in southern Lebanon," the Israeli military said in a statement.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem urged Lebanon to cancel a planned meeting with Israel in Washington on Tuesday, reiterating his group's rejection of direct negotiations with its foe.

The Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the United States are scheduled to meet in Washington on Tuesday to discuss holding direct negotiations between the two countries.

Lebanese authorities have stressed that Beirut first wants to secure a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war, but Israel has dismissed that prospect, saying it prefers instead to focus on formal peace talks with Lebanon itself, with which it has technically been at war for decades.

"We reject negotiations with the usurping Israeli entity," Hezbollah's Qassem, whose group has been at war with Israel since March 2, said in a televised address on Monday.

"We call for a historic and heroic stance by cancelling this negotiating meeting."

The United States sought a 20-year suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment program as part of a deal to end the war, according to media reports Monday, after Washington and Tehran failed to come to an agreement.

Media outlets reported that Washington asked Tehran to agree not to enrich uranium for 20 years, citing officials close to the negotiations held in Islamabad on Saturday.

The 20-year pause would be accompanied by sanctions relief, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Iran, in turn, proposed to suspend its nuclear activity for five years, according to The New York Times.

The reported proposals would be a watered-down version of Trump's previous demands that Iran permanently give up its nuclear ambitions.

The United States said "the ball is in the Iranian court" on ending the Mideast war, as diplomats accelerated efforts on Tuesday towards a new round of peace talks after weekend negotiations failed to produce a deal.

US Vice President JD Vance had left talks hosted by Pakistan on Sunday, saying he had handed Tehran the "final and best offer".

President Donald Trump insisted Iranian representatives had called Washington since a US delegation returned empty-handed from negotiations in Islamabad.

"I can tell you that we've been called by the other side. They'd like to make a deal. Very badly, very badly," Trump told reporters outside the Oval Office.

Iranian oil sales in recent weeks have been favourable, and part of the revenue will be allocated to repairing damage to the industry caused by wartime attacks, Iran's oil minister said on Tuesday.

Mohsen Paknejad said oil workers had maintained operations across facilities during the conflict, ensuring oil exports were not halted "even for a single day", including at key export hubs such as Kharg Island.

The minister said last month that the selling price of Iranian crude had significantly increased. 

Negotiating teams from the US and Iran could return to Islamabad this week, four sources said on Tuesday, days after the highest-level talks between the two countries since the 1979 Islamic Revolution ended in the Pakistani capital without a breakthrough.

China said on Tuesday that a US blockade around Iranian ports was "dangerous and irresponsible", after US President Donald Trump threatened to sink any boats that sought to leave or dock there.

"The US increased military operations and took a targeted blockade action, which will only exacerbate tensions and undermine the already fragile ceasefire agreement and further jeopardise safety of passage through the Strait," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a news conference, adding "this is dangerous and irresponsible behaviour".