Oil prices rose by four percent overnight Thursday Danish time after Iran said it would not open the Strait of Hormuz as long as the US maintains its blockade of the strait. This is reported by the AFP news agency.
At around 02:25 Danish time, the US benchmark oil, WTI, rose by 4.06 percent to $96.73 per barrel. The price of a barrel of Brent crude, the international benchmark oil, rose by 3.62 percent to $105.63. However, the prices of both fell in the minutes that followed.
Oil prices have risen since Israel and the US attacked Iran on February 28. They have continued to rise in line with the uncertainty about whether the war will resume.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said he would extend a two-week ceasefire with Iran, which was due to expire on Wednesday. The extension was supposed to give more time for peace negotiations with Pakistan as a mediator, it was said.
Here he did not come up with any backlash, but simply wrote that the United States was awaiting a joint proposal from Iranian leaders and representatives. At the same time, the American president said that an American naval blockade of Iranian ports would continue.
It was subsequently heard from Iran that it welcomed Pakistan's efforts in the negotiations. There were no further comments on Trump's statement, however.
The Iranian parliament speaker and top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote on the social media X on Wednesday that it is not possible to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as long as the US maintains a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
The White House on Wednesday denied a report from anonymous sources in various media outlets that Trump's extension of the ceasefire would last for three to five days.
Several media outlets - including Fox and Axios - had reported, based on anonymous sources, that there was a three to five day deadline for the ceasefire. The Reuters news agency did the same for a short time before Reuters withdrew the report.
When the US and Iran last met in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, no agreement was reached. While there is uncertainty about the negotiations and the duration of the ceasefire, Iran's Revolutionary Guard said on Wednesday that it had seized two ships that were trying to cross the Strait of Hormuz.
The US Central Command, Centcom, wrote on X on Thursday night that the US military, as part of the naval blockade, has redirected 31 ships to turn around in the Strait of Hormuz. Most of the ships were oil tankers, it said.
/ritzau/
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