The Latest: US-Vatican feud erupts over Iran as ship traffic comes to a halt in Strait of Hormuz
The Pope pushed back Monday on President Donald Trump’s criticism of him over the U.S.-Israel war in Iran, telling reporters that the Vatican’s appeals for peace and reconciliation are rooted in the Gospel, and that he doesn’t fear the Trump administration.
Leo XIV's comments came as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz appeared to have come to a halt, an intelligence firm said, and oil prices resumed their climb after Trump announced on social media that the United States would blockade the waterway.
U.S. Central Command later said the blockade would involve all vessels entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, but that ships traveling between non-Iranian ports will still be allowed to transit, a step down from the president’s earlier threat to blockade the entire strait.
Trump confirmed the timing and some details of the CENTCOM statement in a post on his social media site early Monday.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said the strait remained under Iran’s “full control” and was open for non-military vessels, but military ones would get a “forceful response,” two semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported.
The moves came after marathon U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement, setting the stage for a showdown. Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who led Iran’s side in the talks, addressed Trump in a statement on his return to Iran: “If you fight, we will fight.”
The war, which is entering its seventh week, has killed thousands of people and shaken global markets.
Here is the latest:
Oil prices have jumped to more than $100 a barrel again and Wall Street appears to be following global markets lower as the U.S. military prepared to blockade traffic to and from Iranian ports. In the Strait of Hormuz, most shipping has been stalled since the start of the war.
Futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average each fell 0.7% before the opening bell. Nasdaq futures slid 1%.
Trump announced the planned blockade after U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement, and the U.S. military said the blockade involving all Iranian ports would begin Monday at 10 a.m. EDT.
Iran immediately responded with threats on all ports in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
Iran’s ambassador to India said Tehran is open to talks with the United States if Washington refrains from making “unlawful demands.”
Mohammad Fathali was referring to talks held in Islamabad and said the main sticking points were Iran’s nuclear program, war reparations and sanctions relief.
Asked about the prospects for future negotiations, Fathali told reporters in New Delhi, “If they (the U.S.) accept our conditions, it is possible.”
The chief of Russia’s state nuclear corporation said Monday it was pulling nearly all of its personnel from Iran’s Russia-built nuclear power plant.
Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev said 108 workers were leaving the power plant in Bushehr, and only 20 will stay behind to keep watch of the equipment at the plant where Russia is building two more nuclear reactors. Likhachev said that Russia has coordinated the workers’ evacuation with the Iranian authorities. Since the start of the war, Russia has repeatedly voiced concern about projectiles hitting the territory of the plant, some of them landing near its nuclear reactor.
Russia had planned the near complete evacuation long before the ceasefire, removing about 600 personnel in several waves in March and earlier this month.
Spain’s Defense Minister Margarita Robles condemned Trump’s threatened shipping blockade, saying it “makes no sense.”
“Since the war began, everything has been senseless,” Robles told Spanish broadcaster TVE on Monday. “Nobody knows the reason why this war started, a war that was supposed to be quick. This is just another episode of the downward spiral we have been dragged into, and that they have tried to drag the entire world into.”
Spain under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been Europe’s loudest critic of the U.S. and Israel’s military actions in the Middle East. The NATO member said earlier this month that its airspace was closed to the U.S. planes being used in Iran, and disallowed the U.S. from utilizing jointly operated military bases in southern Spain in the war effort.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said fighting is continuing in Lebanon on Monday, focused on the Bint Jbeil area, a strategic point that has been the site of fierce battles between Israel and Hezbollah over the years.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that Israel’s military is expanding beyond the five hilltops it controlled in southern Lebanon since the ceasefire with Hezbollah in 2024 towards a “solid, deeper security zone, which both prevents the danger of invasion and keeps the threat of terrorism away.”
Previously, Netanyahu said Israel wants to control the territory 8-10 kilometers (5-6 miles) from the border in southern Lebanon to remove the threat of short-range rockets or anti-tank missiles targeting Israeli cities and towns on the border.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke by phone with his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
The ministers discussed the Islamabad talks between Iran and the U.S. which failed to achieve a deal, according to the Iranian foreign ministry.
The U.S. will leave the Middle East without any achievements, Iranian media reported on Monday, citing Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani, commander of the powerful elite Quds Force.
He noted that the U.S. and Israel should remember how they left Yemen likewise empty-handed in a prior campaign, according to the Tasnim and Mehr semiofficial news agencies.
Qaani suggested that the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels could close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait as they did between 2023 and 2025. The attacks in Bab el-Mandeb prompted the U.S. to launch an air campaign against the Houthis. The rebels stopped attacking ships in the Red Sea after a deal with the Trump administration.
The European Union’s fuel bill has risen by more than $25 billion since the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran and is likely to mount, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday.
“Our bill for fossil fuel imports has increased by over 22 billion euros – 44 days, 22 billion euros,” she said, noting that “the disruption of energy supplies will continue for some time to come.”
Von der Leyen recommended that EU governments start coordinating how they use their oil and natural gas supplies to avoid adding pressure on the market. She proposed easing restrictions on state aid rules while the crisis lasts to help protect vulnerable consumers and sectors from high energy prices.
A U.S. threat to block the Strait of Hormuz is “more bluffing than reality,” according to Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesperson for the Iranian parliament’s National Security Commission.
Rezaei warned that Tehran is prepared to respond if the situation escalates militarily.
“It will make the current situation (Trump) is in more complicated and will further agitate the market he is angry about, and we may also reveal other cards that we have not used in the game,” Rezaei said in a post on X.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that he has spoken with U.S. Vice President JD Vance about the negotiations in Pakistan.
Netanyahu said the pair spoke Sunday while Vance was on a plane returning from the negotiations in Islamabad.
Israel supports Trump’s “strong stance to impose a naval blockade on Iran,” Netanyahu said, and backs the U.S. position that Iran must remove all of its enriched nuclear material and refrain from any more enrichment within Iran for several decades.
The coming days could be a stress test for the rules that are supposed to govern the Strait of Hormuz, according to Sal Mercogliano, a maritime historian at Campbell University.
It remains unclear, he added, how the U.S. would track, intercept and board vessels moving from Iranian ports through the strait.
Any U.S. or Iranian attempt to choke off the waterway would run counter to the principle of freedom of navigation, said Mercogliano, who has testified before the U.S. Senate on commercial shipping and written for the U.S. Naval Institute.
“We are challenging the concept of freedom of the seas,” Mercogliano said on his “What’s Going on With Shipping?” podcast, which has more than 600,000 followers on YouTube.
Asked to comment on the U.S. announcement of a blockade on Iran’s ports and coastline, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Most likely, such actions will continue to negatively impact international markets, this can be assumed with a high degree of certainty.”
Peskov told reporters: “Many details remain unclear and incomprehensible, so I would refrain from making any substantive comments at this time.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has spoken by phone with his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Iranian semiofficial media reported.
The ministers discussed the talks between the U.S. and Iran in Pakistan which failed to achieve a deal, Mehr News agency said, without elaborating further.
An Israeli airstrike killed at least three Palestinians in central Gaza Strip early Monday, hospital authorities said.
The strike hit a Hamas-manned security point just after midnight in the eastern part of Deir al-Balah city, in central Gaza, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital which received the dead men. The striked also wounded one Palestinian.
The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The deaths were the latest among Palestinians in the coastal enclave since an October fragile ceasefire deal attempted to halt a more than two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, the shaky ceasefire has seen almost daily Israeli fire.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has said the U.S.-Iran ceasefire could be extended for 45 to 60 days to allow negotiations to continue.
Fidan, whose country has supported mediation efforts, said the U.S. and Iranian delegations presented initial “maximalist” positions during the talks in Pakistan, adding that Iran is expected to review U.S. proposals and respond.
“If the parties make good progress, an additional ceasefire could be introduced — lasting 45 to 60 days — so that negotiations can continue,” he said in an interview with state-run Anadolu Agency. He cautioned however, that Israel remains “a factor” that could disrupt the negotiations. The nuclear issue could also become a sticking point, he said.
“If the nuclear matter turns into an all‑or‑nothing situation, especially regarding enrichment, we could face a serious obstacle,” Fidan said. “But hopefully, with the support of mediators and other countries, we will try to overcome this as well.”
A labor union said Monday that thousands of crew members stuck on vessels in and around the Strait of Hormuz are running short on basics and growing increasingly desperate.
Milind Kandalgaonkar, general secretary of the National Union of Seafarers of India, said that nearly 20,000 Indian crew members have been stranded in the region.
“Many of these seafarers are reportedly facing acute shortages of food, potable water, and essential medical supplies,” he wrote in a letter to India’s national shipping board. He urged authorities to ensure supplies can reach the vessels, protect seafarers’ welfare and prepare for evacuations if needed.
Tanker owners say the ceasefire has done little to ease conditions for mariners in the strait, where crews report dwindling food and fresh water.
Israel’s military said Monday that its troops have surrounded what they say is Hezbollah military infrastructure and have started ground operations in the strategic southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil and its surrounding areas, killing over 100 Hezbollah fighters.
Hezbollah did not immediately publicly announce anyone killed among their ranks, and Israel did not immediately acknowledge any fatalities among their forces. Hezbollah has not commented on the developments.
On Sunday Hezbollah claimed at least five attacks on Israeli troops in the town and its outskirts with rockets, artillery, and exploding drones. According to the group’s statements, the Israeli troops were positioned near a school, a hospital, and juncture that surrounds the heart of Bint Jbeil. The Israeli military said it attacked Hezbollah forces.
The town overlooks the UN-mandated Blue Line that divides Israel and Lebanon, just over 2 miles away, making it a strategic point for the Iran-backed group.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has criticized the peace talks between the U.S. and Iran in Pakistan last week as not well prepared.
“I was not surprised by the decision to break off the talks in Islamabad,” he told reporters in Berlin on Monday.
“From the very beginning, I didn’t get the impression that they were really well prepared,” the chancellor said without further elaborating who exactly he was referring to with this criticism.
The U.S. blockade of Iranian ports could prompt the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen to disrupt transit through the strait at the opening of the Red Sea, an analyst has warned.
“If the U.S. moves to impose a blockade on Iranian ports and Iran starts feeling the pain, the Houthis are very likely to escalate in the Bab el-Mandeb,” said Ahmed Nagi, a senior analyst for Yemen at the International Crisis Group think-tank.
The closure of Bab el-Mandeb would add “another layer” of pressure on the global shipping industry, he said.
The offices of the Lebanese Red Cross in Tyre were hit by a drone strike on Monday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.
The strike in the southern coastal city killed a wounded person being transported and damaged Red Cross vehicles. The Israeli military did not immediately reply to inquiries from The Associated Press.
A funeral was being held on Monday for a Lebanese Red Cross volunteer killed on Sunday in an Israeli strike that hit his team while on a mission in Beit Yahoun.
The Lebanese Red Cross operates in war-torn southern Lebanon in coordination with the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, UNIFIL, and the Lebanese military.
Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi held telephone talks Monday with her Pakistani counterpart, Shehbaz Sharif, during which she expressed support for his mediation efforts for hosting U.S.-Iran talks in Islamabad.
Takaichi said she reiterated Japan’s position that what is most important is to promptly reach a final agreement and to de-escalate through talks to ensure safe passages through the Strait of Hormuz.
Sharif said Pakistan hopes to cooperate with Japan in the effort, Takaichi said.
France and the U.K. will organize a conference with partners ready to contribute to a peaceful multinational mission to help restore navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, President Emmanuel Macron said.
In a post on X, Macron stressed “the need to restore free and unimpeded navigation through the Strait of Hormuz as quickly as possible.” He called for a “peaceful multinational mission,” adding: “This strictly defensive mission, separate from the warring parties to the conflict, is intended to be deployed as soon as circumstances permit.”
France and the U.K. have in recent years been working to set up an operation that would allow ships to cross the Strait of Hormuz once the fighting ends.
The roughly 17-cent (20 U.S. cent) per-liter reduction is intended to help cushion the impact of high energy prices linked to the Iran war.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Monday the measure “will very quickly improve the situation for drivers and businesses across the country, and especially for those who spend a great deal of time on the road, primarily for work-related reasons.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer says Britain will not be part of a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports in response to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Starmer told BBC radio on Monday that “we’re not supporting the blockade” and “we’re not getting dragged into the war.”
He said U.K. efforts remain focused on reopening the key shipping route, whose closure has sent prices for oil and other commodities soaring.
Starmer spoke after U.S. President Donald Trump said Britain would send minesweepers to the strait.
Britain says it might help with mine-clearing in the waterway, but only after the fighting stops. Starmer said all Britain’s military capability is focused on getting the strait “fully open.” The U.K. is working with dozens of other countries on plans to restore security to shipping through the key oil route after the conflict.
Japan has expressed support for the U.S.-Iran talks held in Pakistan over the weekend and that it continues to closely watch further development in hopes of an early de-escalation.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told reporters Monday that his government believes that the most important thing is actually to achieve de-escalation, including ensuring the safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
“We hope a final agreement will be reached swiftly through diplomatic efforts,” Kihara said.
Kihara, asked if Japan is considering sending Japanese warships to join minesweeping effort in the key waterway, said nothing has been decided.
Southeast Asian countries urged the United States and Iran Monday to keep going with peace negotiations, enforce a ceasefire and restore the safe passage of ships, seafarers and aircraft in the Strait of Hormuz.
The foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations made the urgent plea as they held an emergency video conference, the second in recent weeks, to assess the impact of the war in the Middle East, including soaring fuel prices, and how they could cooperate in the face of global crises.
The 11-nation bloc reminded “the obligations of all states to resolve their differences through peaceful means, to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations, to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure in armed conflicts.”
It called “for the full and effective implementation of the ceasefire, aimed at preventing further suffering and loss of lives, ensuring maritime security and freedom of navigation and overflight.”
Iran threatened ports in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman after the U.S. announced a blockade on Iran’s ports and coastline.
“Security in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman is either for everyone or for NO ONE,” according to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, IRIB. “NO PORT in the region will be safe,” the Iranian military said.
Oil prices started climbing and Asian markets mostly declined Monday as the U.S. military prepared to blockade ships bound for or coming from Iranian ports and transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
On Monday, benchmark U.S. crude jumped $6.71 or nearly 7% to $103.28 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose $6.20, or 6.5%, to $101.40 a barrel.
Oil prices have been rising as shipping through the strait has essentially stalled since late February. Brent crude oil, the international standard, has gone from roughly $70 per barrel before the war in late February to more than $119 at times.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 0.7% to finish at 56,502.77. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.4% to 8,926.00. South Korea’s Kospi dipped 0.9% to 5,808.62. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 1.1% to 25,613.85, while the Shanghai Composite was little changed, inching up less than 0.1% to 3,988.56.
Iraq’s oil exports plunged in March to 18.6 million barrels, down from 99.87 million in February due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, according to official figures released Monday.
The state-run Organization for Marketing of Oil said revenues also have fallen to just $1.95 billion, down from over $6.81 billion.
The figures showed that exports from the Kurdistan Region through Turkey’s Ceyhan port also dropped to 1.27 million barrels, down from 5.55 million barrels in February.
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
