US-Iran talks take sudden, uncertain shift with sweeping claims on both sides

The Hill ^ | 04/17/26 6:51 PM ET | Ellen Mitchell, Laura Kelly and Filip Timotija

[E. Pluribus Unum]

President Trump sprinted ahead Friday to take a victory lap celebrating what he said was Iran’s agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz and a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. 

But conflicting statements from Iranian officials and Israeli pushback on the terms of the ceasefire with Lebanon are raising doubt about the president’s actual successes.  

“I’m concerned that, in this round, Iran came out with the upper hand,” Danny Citrinowicz, senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, posted on the social platform X.  

Trump began Friday morning with a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in effect and celebrated what he called the opening of the “Strait of Iran,” referring to the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Embassy in Zimbabwe joked that the term meant Trump was in a good mood. 

Then Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, wrote on X late Friday that with the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz continuing, the waterway “will not remain open.”

“The President of the United States made seven claims in one hour, all seven of which were false,” he wrote, according to a translation.

The waterway otherwise remains “effectively closed” as vessel movements are confined to corridors that require approval, according to Kpler, a go-to source for global trade intelligence. 

Still, markets earlier Friday responded with “cautious optimism, reflected in a short-term pullback in prices,” but any meaningful recovery in the passage of oil, gas and other goods including fertilizer “depends on a gradual return of shipowners, beginning with a tentative ‘first movers’ phase that may restore only a fraction of capacity,” Kpler said Friday.

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TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: armchairgeneralsoffr; ceasefiremisfire; iran; pearlclutchingbelow

[Williams]

These articles are despicable.

[WashingtonSource]

Pathetic misdirection

[Cen-Tejas]

There’s clearly one group of people trying to settle with the US and Israel and one group of Islamic Lunatics wanting to become martyrs. My opinion is that Trump should finish the complete and utter physical, economic and cash flow components of Iran and call it a Victory and leave. I think General Keane thinks the same thing.

[Donbue]

The Hill…..how about The Joke?

[Mariner]

Iran contradicting POTUS announcements is fair news, is it not?

[stars & stripes forever]

If peace talks fail, it’s 💥💥💥

[chuck allen]

They will fight. But we are ready.

[Political Junkie Too]

Who needs the IRGC undermining the deals the Iranian politicians make when we have our own "fourth estate" doing the same thing right here?

-PJ

[JZelle]

There shouldn’t be anything to talk about. If there were, we should never have been there.

[BeauBo]

Keir Starmer came out today saying that the UK would “lead” a task force (with the French) to secure traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

There can be no surer sign the Strait is already secure, than that coward putting his toe in the water.

[Hoboto]

Just start bombing them again. They haven’t got the message.

[kvanbrunt2]

https://www.vesselfinder.com/?p=IRZBR001 It don’t look open to me.

[Midwesterner53]

My money says the Iranians in charge are still too fanatical to go with this agreement Trump is talking about. These fools make the Japanese look like the Welcome Wagon of the early 1940s.

[kvanbrunt2]

Keep in mind Trump is getting intel from people who are doing a coup against him starting in 2016

[equaviator]

"...Trump is getting intel from people who are doing a coup against him starting in 2016."

How could you know all of that and Trump 47 doesn't? Please elaborate and I'll make a note of it....To be filed under "NFG".

[Kudsman]

I have to wonder how much of this doubkespeak is for consumption of the Iranian people? To keep them at bay as things progress.

[equaviator]

Nah. Probably just another FRINO feeling self-empowered.

[Kudsman]

True. Facts are still facts. The blockade of Iran remains in place. Hostilities can resume in the snap of finger. Ahmed the perfume salesman cannot sell his tiny bottles for 38 million rial and his family really wants to buy a little mutton to go with their rice.