• US blockade turns back several vessels as Trump claims peace within reach
• Iran threatens to disrupt Red Sea maritime route if ports remain under siege, says ceasefire ‘at risk’
• China supports maintaining momentum of peace talks, top diplomat tells Iran
LONDON/DUBAI: Almost one dozen nations called on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to provide “coordinated emergency support” to help states hit by disruptions from the war in the Middle East, as the US president said a peace deal was within reach.
The war has prompted Iran to effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for global crude and gas shipments, to ships other than its own, sharply reducing exports from the Gulf, particularly to Asia and Europe, and leaving energy importers scrambling for alternative supplies. In response, the US blockaded the Iranian ports and prevented several vessels from leaving the area on Wednesday.
In a joint statement issued by the UK government, the finance ministers from 11 countries asked the IMF and World Bank “to provide a coordinated emergency support offer for countries in need, tailored to country circumstances and drawing on the full range and flexibility of their toolkits”.
“Renewed hostilities, a widening of the conflict or continued disruption in the Strait of Hormuz would pose serious additional risks to global energy security, supply chains, and economic and financial stability,” said the statement.
“Even with a durable resolution of the conflict, impacts on growth, inflation and markets will persist,” it said, adding that they also reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine. The countries that signed the statement were Australia, Finland, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, AFP reported.
Iranian ports blockade
The blockade of Iranian ports continued on Wednesday, even as the US president said that war could end soon and that it would not be necessary to extend the two-week ceasefire with Iran reached last week.
“I think you’re going to be watching an amazing two days ahead,” President Donald Trump told ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, according to a post by the reporter on X. “I think it can be over very soon. It will end soon,” he said in a separate interview taped on Tuesday with Fox Business Network’s ‘Mornings with Maria’ and aired on Wednesday.
Speaking at an event in Georgia, Vice President Vance said Trump wanted to make a “grand bargain” with Iran but there was a lot of mistrust between the two countries.
These comments came against the backdrop of efforts by Pakistan and other regional states to bring the two countries back to the table and extend the fragile ceasefire, which was holding despite the US decision to siege Iranian ports.
Vessels intercepted
The US military said more vessels were being turned back under the blockade, including the US-sanctioned, Chinese-owned tanker Rich Starry which was seen heading back through the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday.
Eight Iran-linked oil tankers have been intercepted since the blockade began on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported. A US destroyer stopped two oil tankers attempting to leave the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday, Reuters quoted a US official as saying. An Iranian supertanker subject to US sanctions crossed the strait towards Iran’s Imam Khomeini port despite the blockade, Iran’s Fars news agency said on Wednesday, possibly returning to port empty. It did not identify the tanker or give further details of its voyage.
On the other hand, Iran threatened to shut down Red Sea trade unless the United States lifted its naval blockade on Tehran’s ports, saying the ceasefire was at risk. Unless Washington relents, Iran’s armed forces “will not allow any exports or imports to continue in the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman and the Red Sea,” said Iranian military official Ali Abdollahi. He heads Iran’s military central command centre.
The semi-official Mehr news agency, meanwhile, said Iran would use alternative ports away from its southern coastline to bypass the blockade, while another Iranian outlet cited shipping sources as saying maritime traffic was continuing normally.
As Washington has sought to turn the screws on Tehran with a blockade of its ports, with US Central Command saying overnight that Americans “have completely halted economic trade going into and out of Iran by sea”, the picture based on recent maritime tracking data in the Strait of Hormuz was less clear-cut. Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported Wednesday that shipping had continued from southern Iran.
‘Momentum of peace talks’
Separately, China’s top diplomat told his Iranian counterpart that Beijing “supports maintaining the momentum of the ceasefire and peace talks” in a phone call on Wednesday, as negotiators from Pakistan landed in Tehran to discuss a second round of US-Iran talks.
The statement came a day after President Trump said a new round of talks with Iran could take place in Pakistan “over the next two days” and that while war was “very close to being over”.
Similar comments were made by Iran, whose foreign ministry spokesman said “several messages” had been exchanged via Islamabad since the talks wrapped up on Sunday. Peace talks are “in the fundamental interests of the Iranian people and are also the shared hope of regional countries and the international community,” Wang Yi said, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement on Wednesday. He said China was willing to continue to play a “constructive role” towards peace in the Middle East after a first round of Iran-US talks in Islamabad at the weekend failed to reach an agreement, AFP reported.
Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2026
