Iran’s truce dispute and Yemen attacks keep two sea lanes under pressure
Mediated efforts to revive the June Iran-US truce have stalled as rival claims persist over Hormuz, while renewed Houthi attacks on shipping have brought Yemen back before the Security Council.
Geopolitics··Morning
Mediated talks on the June truce go nowhere
Al-Monitor reports that a senior Iranian source told Reuters there had been absolutely no progress in mediated talks on the United States returning to the interim agreement reached in June and setting a timetable for implementing its commitments. That June text declared an immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts. US President Donald Trump said on 7 July that the deal was over, and Iran’s foreign ministry called it suspended a week later. Washington accuses Tehran of failing to honour a commitment to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while Tehran says the United States has reneged on lifting a blockade of Iranian ports and releasing frozen Iranian assets. Trump claimed on Wednesday that the US has total control over the strait; the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, the body Iran set up to manage the waterway, said it remains blocked and will not reopen until Iran’s conditions are accepted. New attacks on shipping in the region were reported on Tuesday. The freeze in the mediated track therefore leaves the waterway dispute and the wider interim commitments without a working timetable that both sides accept.[1]
Rival claims over who controls Hormuz
A second Al-Monitor report, carrying Reuters copy, says Hossein Taeb, the recently appointed head of Iran’s Basij force, stated on Thursday that the Strait of Hormuz is under the management and control of the Islamic Republic. His remarks came a day after Trump claimed total control of the waterway. Neither side confirms the other’s account. Taeb’s words were reported by the semi-official Fars news agency. The same day, senior military political official Rasoul Sanaei-Rad said the strait would not reopen unless the other side met its commitments under the interim deal reached in June, and that reopening was not something Washington could achieve on its own. A fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed through the strait before the war; Tehran effectively closed it after the US-Israeli strikes that began on 28 February, and Washington imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports. The competing control claims sit on top of that earlier closure and blockade, so the dispute is about both political authority over the waterway and the practical terms for reopening traffic.[2]
Yemen’s shipping attacks return to the Security Council
UN News reports that the UN Security Council met on Thursday on Yemen as fighting spread and attacks on shipping resumed. A commercial ship was struck in the Bab al-Mandab strait on 11 August, killing six people, and the Houthis declared a naval blockade in July against vessels linked to Saudi Arabia. The Council had already issued a statement on 7 August condemning Houthi missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and on commercial vessels. The Houthis have held Sana’a since 2014, and the truce brokered by the United Nations in 2022 has framed the conflict since. Yemen remains one of the world’s most severe humanitarian emergencies: 19.5 million people needed humanitarian assistance in 2025. The session was followed by closed consultations. Stalled interim talks, rival Hormuz claims, and renewed shipping attacks place pressure on two chokepoints at once: Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab. In both corridors, governments and conflict parties assert control, deny the other side’s version, and leave commercial crews facing interrupted traffic, new attack reports and unfinished diplomatic calendars.[3], [1], [2]
