Tehran says it will stop attacks as long as Washington does the same, while oil prices retreat on hopes of diplomacy. Meanwhile, Iran has accused Ukraine of attacking one of its commercial vessels and killing a sailor.
The US may have paused its bombing campaign against Iran, but all is not quiet on the West Asia front. A tanker explosion was reported in the Strait of Hormuz early Monday, July 27.After 13 consecutive nights of strikes on Iranian military targets, the Pentagon suspended its campaign late on Friday to give diplomacy a chance. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran would also halt its attacks as long as Washington did the same.
The pause offered some relief to oil markets. Brent crude briefly fell below $90 a barrel, sliding as much as 7% in early trading, while West Texas Intermediate dropped towards $80 and was last down around 4%.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused Ukraine of attacking an Iranian commercial vessel and killing a sailor, calling it a “blatant” violation of the UN Charter. In a post on X, he said he had told EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Kyiv’s action “cannot go unanswered”.
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