The head of the UN maritime agency says no country had a legal right to block shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, after US President Donald Trump threatened to begin a blockade of Iranian ports.
“In accordance to international law, no countries have the right to prohibit the right of innocent passage or the freedom of navigation through international straits that are used for international transit,” the International Maritime Organisation’s Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez told a news conference on Monday local time.
Iran’s military said the US naval blockade was illegal and amounts to “piracy”, warning that no Gulf ports would be safe if its own were threatened.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced his support for Mr Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a trade passage paralysed by the US-Iran war. Mr Netanyahu added that his government was in full co-ordination with Washington on the matter.
France and Britain will co-host a conference this week to discuss a multinational mission to restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the leaders of both countries said on X.
Meanwhile, oil prices surged and stock markets broadly fell as investors digested the failure of weekend US-Iran peace talks and Mr Trump’s blockade order.
And Iran’s judiciary said Monday authorities had released the assets of the captain of Iranian women’s football team which had been seized after she made and then withdrew an asylum claim in Australia last month.
“The assets of Zahra Ghanbari, a footballer for the Iranian women’s national team, which had been seized, were released by court decision,” Mizan said.
It added that the move was taken after “a declaration of innocence following her change in behaviour.”
The announcement came two days after Iranian media published a list of people they called “traitors” whose assets had been frozen by court order following the outbreak of the war with Israel and the US.
Read below for updates.
