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Talks with Israel ‘productive’, says Lebanese ambassador
Lebanon’s ambassador to the US, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, said that talks with Israel, which took place in Washington under US mediation on Tuesday, were “productive”.
Moawad said she called for a ceasefire, measures to alleviate the humanitarian crisis caused by the conflict, and for the return of over a million displaced people to their homes.
She also said that she emphasised Lebanon’s “full sovereignty over Lebanese lands”, adding that the date and venue for further talks would be announced in due course.
Iran may opt to abide by US blockade in hopes of a deal, experts say
Submitted by
Sean Mathews
on
Tue, 04/14/2026 - 19:47
If Iran concedes to the US blockade of its oil exports, it could signal that Tehran sees a bigger ceasefire deal is at hand
Cargo ships in the Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from northern Ras al-Khaimah in the UAE amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, on 11 March 2026 (Reuters)
Off
The US blockade on Iran is a “short-term tool” that could be tested by China and ultimately backfire on the US if energy markets lose their cautious faith in the Trump administration’s willingness to strike a peace deal with Iran.
Cutting off Iranian oil shipments should, in theory, lead to a spike in energy prices because Iran was the last country to send oil through the Strait of Hormuz, with exports reaching as high as 1.5 million barrels per day.
But Brent crude, the international benchmark, has been moving down since the US blockade went into effect on Monday. It was trading down 4.3 percent at $95.08 per barrel.
Diplomats and analysts tell Middle East Eye that the US blockade has, for now, been overshadowed by optimism that Iran and the US are committed to a two-week ceasefire and negotiations.
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that talks between the two countries could resume in Islamabad, Pakistan, within two days.
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“The test right now is whether in the next several days we see a return to kinetic activity on the part of the Iranians to challenge the US blockade or US kinetic action against Iran,” Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator, told MEE.
For now, the US says its blockade is working. Maritime analysts parsing ship tracking data tell MEE that the assertion appears to be true.
Two vessels affiliated with Iran, the Rich Starry and the Elpis, drew attention on Tuesday after they crossed the Strait of Hormuz but then appeared to idle instead of exiting the Gulf of Oman.
Matthew Wright, the principal freight analyst at energy analytics firm Kpler, told MEE that because the US Navy is outside the Strait of Hormuz, the second leg of the journey is the key metric for assessing whether the blockade is working.
“We haven’t seen any Iranian-linked vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz and exiting the Gulf of Oman. That is what we are waiting on,” he said.
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All eyes on China
US warships are keeping a distance from Iran’s mainland, staying outside the narrow Strait of Hormuz because they are vulnerable to Iranian drones and short-range anti-ship missiles, experts say.
The Elpis is a Panama-registered vessel, but Rich Starry is Chinese-owned and is known to carry Iranian methanol, Wright said.
China 'might do things behind the scenes to rebuild and rearm Iran, but not directly confront the US militarily'
- Yun Sun, Stimson Center
China accounts for roughly 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports and is the one country that could test the US blockade, experts say.
MEE previously reported that China sold air defence systems to Iran after the June 2025 war, and later drones. The New York Times reported on Saturday that China may have delivered shoulder-fired missiles to Iran.
Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Center, told MEE that Beijing would not challenge the US outright, even if it is pursuing quiet efforts to bolster the Islamic Republic.
“The Chinese will not pick a fight with the US over Iran. They might do things behind the scenes to rebuild and rearm Iran, but not directly confront the US militarily. The Strait of Hormuz is so far from China, and the geographical distance is a key barrier to any Chinese plan [for] effective military intervention,” Sun said.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for a ceasefire on Tuesday and for both Iran and the US to “restore normal traffic” in the Strait of Hormuz, while adding that the US blockade was “dangerous and irresponsible”. Beijing denied reports that it was arming Iran.
Iran's blockade buffer
Still, an Arab diplomat told MEE that the US blockade was reliant on China’s quiet consent. For example, earlier this month, the US allowed a Russian oil tanker to reach Cuba despite a blockade against the Caribbean country. The diplomat added that Iran was in a position to wait out the US blockade.
“Iran has weeks before its storage capacity fills up and it's forced to start shutting down production,” the diplomat told MEE. “And don’t forget the Iranians have tens of millions of barrels at sea in Asia to sell.”
Iran boosted oil loadings at Kharg Island before the US-Israeli attack on 28 February. As a result, according to Kpler, it has roughly 38 million barrels of oil sitting at sea, much of it near the Chinese coast.
Alan Eyre, a former senior State Department expert on Iran, told MEE that the US blockade was based on flawed timelines and calculations.
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“For any sort of time frame the US cares about to inflict pain on Iran’s economy, the blockade is just too slow-acting,” he said. “It’s a short-term tool that will fail to move the Iranians at the negotiating table.”
Unlike Cuba, where Trump is trying to impose an energy blockade, Iran is not dependent on the sea for imports.
“Iran is sitting on a lot of money it made the last 40 days from oil sales, and in terms of importing goods, they have the Caspian Sea and land borders,” Eyre added.
If Iran doesn’t challenge the US blockade, it could be because Tehran's leadership assesses that a deal with the US is possible, experts say.
Trump needs a big win
Talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, ended without a deal, but several regional and US media reports said that the two sides came close to a framework agreement during the talks. Trump said on Tuesday that the two sides could resume talks "over the next two days” in Islamabad.
US Vice President JD Vance walked away from the talks in Islamabad, saying the two sides failed to agree on the fate of Iran’s nuclear programme, but Eyre said there was “a deal to be made”.
“Vance walking away is like negotiating for a rug at a market in the Middle East. You ask the price, say it's too high and walk away. But then you come back the next day,” he said.
'Vance walking away is like negotiating for a rug at a market in the Middle East. You ask the price, then you come back the next day'
- Alan Eyre, former US diplomat
A western official in touch with the United Nations and Gulf governments told MEE that a key US concession in the talks was the offer of a 20-year “moratorium” on uranium enrichment, which Iran responded to with a much lower timeline.
"If the administration has conceded to using the word ‘moratorium’, which means ‘pause' and not ‘permanent ending’ - that’s a significant concession, and you might actually have a negotiation,” Miller, now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told MEE.
Iran has long insisted on its right to enrich uranium for a nuclear programme it says is for peaceful purposes. Iran's late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious decree against developing nuclear weapons in 2003, and reiterated it several times after.
There are, however, several other contentious points the two sides need to square - including Iran’s insistence on charging a toll for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the status of its enriched uranium inside the country, and the level of enrichment the US may acknowledge Iran having.
“Trump needs a big win here, and it ain’t opening up the straits,” Miller said.
“I don’t think the Iranians will agree to a 20-year moratorium, but if they agree to a pause in single digits, that could open things up,” he said.
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