The United States and Iran have paused military strikes for a third consecutive night, creating a window for diplomatic talks to advance and sending global oil prices sharply lower, US officials confirmed on Wednesday.
US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told Fox News that President Donald Trump was giving talks some space and room to breathe after 13 consecutive nights of US strikes on Iran aimed at degrading Tehran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
An Iranian army spokesperson said on Sunday that Tehran had halted retaliatory attacks in the region in response to the US pause. The development follows nearly two weeks of escalating exchanges that saw Iran strike US military facilities across the Middle East, killing four American soldiers, and the US retaliating with airstrikes that killed dozens of people according to Iran’s health ministry.
Oil prices dropped sharply as markets reacted to the prospect of de-escalation between the two nations. The Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil passes, has been at the center of the conflict since mid-July when Iranian forces attacked tankers in the strategic waterway.
The US resumed airstrikes on July 13 after Iran attacked tankers in the strait, reinstating a naval blockade on Iranian ports. The back-and-forth marked a collapse of a June memorandum of understanding in which both sides agreed to halt military operations and reopen the strait.
Waltz cautioned that the pause should not be read as a permanent de-escalation. The president is keeping all options on the table, he told NBC. Additional military assets are moving into the region. Make no mistake, we will see over the coming days.
The US military has everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be, Waltz added in comments to CBS.
Trump himself has not spoken publicly on the latest developments but posted computer-generated images on his Truth Social platform depicting US military planes bombing Iranian ships and Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil export terminal.
Behind the scenes, Iran and Oman held several rounds of technical talks in Tehran over the weekend to discuss management of the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei. The strait remains a major obstacle to permanently ending the war.
In the UK, new Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said he would meet his US counterpart Pete Hegseth in the coming week to discuss the strait. When it comes to securing maritime freedom and free commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, that is where we are absolutely aligned, Streeting said.
The war, now approaching its fifth month, remains largely unpopular in the United States. A CBS/YouGov poll found that 57 percent of Americans are frustrated about the conflict and only 19 percent are optimistic. Thousands of people have been killed across the Middle East since the US-Israeli war with Iran began in February, official figures show, with the vast majority of casualties in Iran and Lebanon.
Trump is set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday, with the Strait of Hormuz and broader regional security expected to dominate the agenda.