A ship was reported seized off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and was heading for Iranian waters on Thursday, a British navy agency said, as the US and Chinese leaders met in Beijing to discuss global problems including the Iran war.
After the talks between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, a White House official said the two leaders had agreed that the Strait of Hormuz should be open, and that Iran should never obtain nuclear weapons.
China is close to Iran and the main buyer of its oil. Iran has largely shut the strait to ships apart from its own since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28, causing the biggest ever disruption to global energy supplies.
The US paused the bombing last month but added a blockade of Iran's ports.
In an interview with CNBC in Beijing, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he believed China would, "do what they can," to help open the strait, which he said was, "very much in their interest". Before the war, about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies passed through the strait.
But diplomacy to end the conflict has been on hold since last week when Iran and the US each rejected the other's most recent proposals.
In the latest incidents on the trade route, an Indian cargo vessel carrying livestock from Africa to the United Arab Emirates was sunk in waters off the coast of Oman.
India condemned the attack and said all 14 crew members had been rescued by the Omani Coast Guard. Vanguard, a British maritime security advisory firm, said the vessel was believed to have been hit by a missile or drone which caused an explosion.
Separately, British maritime security agency UKMTO reported on Thursday that "unauthorised personnel" had boarded a ship anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah, and were steering it towards Iran.
"The company security officer reported that the vessel was taken by Iranian personnel while at anchor," Vanguard said.
Security in that area is particularly sensitive, as Fujairah is the UAE's sole oil port on the far side of the strait, allowing some exports to reach markets without passing through it. Iran included that part of the coast on an expanded map it released last week of waters it claimed were under its control.
Still, Iran appears to be making more deals with countries to allow some ships to pass through the strait - if they accept Tehran's terms.
A Japanese tanker crossed on Wednesday after Japan's prime minister announced that she had requested help from the Iranian president. A large Chinese tanker also crossed on Wednesday, and Iran's Fars news agency reported on Thursday that an agreement had been reached to let some Chinese ships pass.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said 30 vessels had crossed the strait since Wednesday evening, still far short of some 140 that typically crossed daily before the war, but a substantial increase if confirmed.
According to shipping analytics firm Kpler, some 10 ships had sailed through the strait in the past 24 hours, only a slight increase from the five to seven ships that have crossed daily in recent weeks.
Iran's Judiciary Spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Thursday the seizure of "US tankers" violating Iranian regulations was being carried out under domestic and international law.
Thousands of Iranians were killed in the US and Israeli airstrikes in the first weeks of the war, and thousands more have been killed in Lebanon since the war reignited fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.
Lebanese and Israeli envoys were meeting with US officials in Washington on Thursday in efforts to end the hostilities. There has been little progress in talks on ending the war in Iran since a single round of talks was held in Pakistan last month.
Trump said his aims in starting the war were to destroy Iran's nuclear programme, end its capability to attack its neighbours and make it easier for Iranians to overthrow their government.
A senior US admiral told a Senate committee on Thursday that Iran's ability to threaten its neighbours and US interests in the region had been dramatically reduced.
"Iran has a significantly degraded threat, and they no longer threaten regional partners, or the United States, in ways that they were able to do before, across every domain," Admiral Brad Cooper said. "They've been significantly degraded."
But Cooper declined to directly address reports by Reuters and other news organisations that Iran, which stockpiled arms in underground facilities, had retained significant missile and drone capabilities.
Iran's rulers, who had to use force to put down anti-government protests at the start of the year, have faced no organised opposition since the war began. And their closure of the strait has given them additional leverage in negotiations.
Washington wants Tehran to hand over the uranium and forgo further enrichment. Iran is seeking the lifting of sanctions, reparations for war damage and acknowledgment of its control over the strait.
(Reporting by Reuters Newsrooms, Writing by Peter Graff and Timothy Heritage, Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Aidan Lewis)
