By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jana Choukeir
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE/DUBAI, May 16 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed Tehran must reopen the Strait of Hormuz, though China gave no indication it would weigh in.
Flying back from Beijing on Friday after two days of talks with Xi, Trump said he was considering whether to lift U.S. sanctions on Chinese oil companies buying Iranian oil. China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil.
“I’m not asking for any favors because when you ask for favors, you have to do favors in return,” Trump said when asked by a reporter on Air Force One whether Xi had made a firm commitment to put pressure on the Iranians to reopen the strait.
Xi did not comment on his discussions with Trump about Iran, although China’s foreign ministry criticized the war, calling it a conflict “which should never have happened, has no reason to continue”.
‘WE WANT THE STRAITS OPEN’
Iran has effectively shut the strait, which carried one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply before the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on February 28. The disruption to shipping has caused the biggest oil supply crisis in history, pushing up oil prices.
Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said on Saturday that Tehran had prepared a mechanism to manage traffic through the strait along a designated route that would be unveiled soon.
Azizi said only commercial vessels and parties cooperating with Iran would benefit, and that fees would be collected for specialised services provided under the mechanism.
Thousands of Iranians were killed in the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. Thousands more have been killed in Lebanon in fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, though Israel and Lebanon agreed on Friday to a 45-day extension of a ceasefire that has tamped down the conflict there.
The U.S. paused its attacks last month but began a port blockade. As of Saturday, 78 commercial ships had been redirected and four disabled to ensure compliance with the blockade, the U.S. military said.
Tehran, which carried out strikes against Israel, U.S. bases and Gulf states after the war began, has said it will not unblock the strait until the U.S. ends its blockade. Trump has threatened to resume attacks if Iran does not agree to a deal.
“We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon, we want the straits open,” Trump said in Beijing, alongside Xi.
Iran, which has long denied it intends to build a nuclear weapon, has refused to end nuclear research or relinquish its hidden stockpile of enriched uranium.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran had received messages from the U.S. indicating Washington was willing to continue talks.
Pakistan has been mediating between Washington and Tehran. Iranian news agency Nournews said Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni had held “detailed” discussions with his visiting Pakistani counterpart on Iran-Pakistan relations and the prospects for resuming peace talks, but gave no details.
TRUMP LOSING PATIENCE
Trump, who told Fox News’ “Hannity” program in an interview aired on Thursday that he was losing patience with Iran, said Tehran “should make a deal”.
Oil prices rose around 3% to around $109 a barrel on Friday [O/R] on concerns about a lack of progress in resolving the conflict.
Talks on ending the war, which has become a liability for Trump ahead of U.S. congressional elections in November, have been on hold since last week when Iran and the U.S. each rejected the other’s most recent proposals.
Araqchi said on Friday that Iran would welcome Chinese input, adding that Tehran was trying to give diplomacy a chance but did not trust the U.S., which has curtailed previous rounds of talks by launching air strikes.
When the U.S. and Israel launched their attacks on Iran at the end of February, they said one of their aims was to weaken the authorities so Iranians could topple the government.
There has been little sign of organized dissent in Iran during the war, and rights groups say the government has cracked down heavily on its opponents.
Iran’s judiciary said on Saturday that 39 people had been executed for collaborating with Israeli or U.S. spy agencies, or taking part in “terror” or armed unrest, since the war started, the judiciary’s news agency Mizan reported.
It said 36 “medium-level” dissidents had received long prison sentences.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jana Choukeir. Additional reporting by Reuters Newsrooms, Writing by William Mallard and Timothy Heritage, Editing by Tom Hogue and Mark Potter)
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