Iran said Monday it would suspend indirect communications with the United States and move to fully close the Strait of Hormuz, abandoning diplomacy in the fourth month of a war that has repeatedly strained a fragile ceasefire.
The decision, carried by the state-aligned Tasnim news agency, ties any resumption of contact to Israeli military operations in Lebanon against the Iran-backed group Hezbollah. No talks will take place, Tasnim said, until Israel withdraws fully from occupied areas of Lebanon and halts strikes there and in Gaza.
Tehran and what it calls the resistance front have resolved to "completely block the Strait of Hormuz" and open additional fronts, including the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, according to the report.
Crude prices climbed more than 7% after the report, which markets read as the deterioration of efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict. Roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil once moved through Hormuz.
The move follows a White House meeting three days earlier at which US President Donald Trump declined to finalize a deal that would have at least paused the fighting. In the days after, both sides resumed strikes, further eroding a truce in place since mid-April. The White House and US Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Earlier Monday, CENTCOM said Iran fired two ballistic missiles overnight at American forces stationed in Kuwait. The missiles, launched at 11 p.m. ET Sunday, were intercepted with no US casualties, the command said in a post on X, adding that it "remains vigilant" against Iranian aggression while supporting the ceasefire.
Kuwait's Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes as a dangerous escalation and said it reserved the right to hold Iran responsible for the attacks.
CENTCOM said the launch followed US self-defence strikes over the weekend on Iranian radar and drone command-and-control sites, a response it linked to prior Iranian actions, including the downing of a US MQ-1 drone over international waters. American aircraft destroyed Iranian air defenses, a ground control station and two one-way attack drones that threatened ships transiting regional waters, the command said, reporting no US losses.
The exchanges coincide with an intensifying Israeli offensive in Lebanon. Iran maintains that those strikes breach its US ceasefire, which began in mid-April as a two-week pause before Trump extended it indefinitely. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote Monday that the truce was "a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon," and that a violation on one front breaks it everywhere.
