Key events
South Korea condemns attack on cargo ship in strait of Hormuz
South Korea has condemned an attack against a cargo ship operated by a Korean shipper on 4 May in the strait of Hormuz and said it plans to respond once the source of the attack is identified.
Namu, the vessel operated by the shipper HMM Co., was not in violation of any rules in effect at the time in the waters off the UAE and it was a case of an attack against a commercial vessel that cannot be justified, the official said.
“We condemn this in the strongest terms,” Wi Sung-lac, the South Korean presidential national security adviser, told reporters.
“We’ll seek through further investigation to identify the party responsible for the attack, the exact type of projectile and its physical size.”
South Korea’s defence minister Ahn Gyu-back is due in Washington for talks with the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday.
They could possibly discuss cooperation to restore freedom of navigation through the strait of Hormuz with its effective closure raising concerns about a looming energy crisis in South Korea’s trade-dependent economy. Washington has urged its allies to help unblock the strait but has so far been met with a wall of resistance.
Al Jazeera is carrying some comments from the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei, who is speaking about the Iranian proposal to end the war that the US has emphatically rejected.
“Demanding an end to the war, lifting the (US) blockade and piracy, and releasing Iranian assets that have been unjustly frozen in banks due to US pressure,” Baghaei was quoted as having said.
“Safe passage through the strait of Hormuz and establishing security in the region and Lebanon were other demands of Iran, which are considered a generous and responsible offer for regional security,” he added.
“Whenever we are forced to fight, we will fight, and whenever there is room for diplomacy, we will seize that opportunity,” Baghaei was also quoted as having told a news briefing earlier.
He said the US’s demands were “unreasonable” and suggested that stability in the region had been undermined by Trump’s rejection of Iran’s response to Washington’s peace proposal.
Julian Borger
The US parameters for nuclear talks reportedly included a moratorium on Iranian nuclear enrichment for up to 20 years; the transfer overseas, possibly to the US, of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which could be used to make nuclear warheads; and the dismantling of Iranian nuclear facilities.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Iranian counter-proposal suggested a shorter moratorium, the export of part of the HEU stockpile and the dilution of the rest, and refusal to accept the dismantling of facilities.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had earlier warned the war would continue as long as Iran had a stockpile of HEU.
“It’s not over, because there’s still nuclear material – enriched uranium – that has to be taken out of Iran. There’s still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled,” he told the CBS programme 60 Minutes, according an excerpt published before its broadcast.
Asked how the HEU should be removed, Netanyahu said: “You go in and you take it out,” adding that the best way would be to enter Iran to secure the fissile material as part of an agreement. He said Donald Trump had told him he wants “to go in there”.
In a separate interview, Trump appeared to take a more relaxed view of the HEU stockpile, which the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, says is buried deep under mountains in central Iran. The US president suggested that for the time being, satellite surveillance was sufficient to guarantee no one had access to it.
Trump rejects Iran response to US peace proposal as Tehran warns it is prepared to retaliate against US strikes
We are restarting our live coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran after Donald Trump described Tehran’s response to Washington’s peace proposal as “totally unacceptable”, raising the possibility of fresh conflict.
Iran warned it would not hold back from retaliating against any new US strikes or permit more foreign warships in the strait of Hormuz.
A ceasefire meant to facilitate peace talks came into effect in Apri. It has been largely observed, despite exchanges of fire and reports of strikes in the strategic strait of Hormuz, which Iran has continued to effectively block in response to being attacked by the US and Israel in February.
The US military in turn has blockaded Iranian ports since 13 April, claiming it has turned back 61 commercial vessels and disabled four.
According to Iranian state media, Tehran’s proposal included demands that the US lift its sanctions, end its naval blockade and called for an immediate end to the war with guarantees against any renewed attack on the country.
Posting on Truth Social, Trump said: “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘representatives’. I don’t like it – totally unacceptable.”
The US had presented a peace proposal a week ago, which, as my colleague Julian Borger notes here, was reported to consist of a one-page, 14-point memorandum of understanding that would reopen the strait while setting a framework for further talks on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Trump told US outlet Axios he’d discussed the Iranian response in a phone call with his close ally, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “It was a very nice call. We have a good relationship,” he said, before stressing that the Iran negotiations are “my situation, not everybody else’s.”
Netanyahu warned the war would continue as long as Iran had a stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which could be used to make nuclear warheads.
