US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that if Iran honors what has been agreed to, the US-Israeli war on Iran could end and the Strait of Hormuz reopen.
"Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is, perhaps, a big assumption, the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end, and the highly effective Blockade will allow the Hormuz Strait to be OPEN TO ALL, including Iran.
"If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before," Trump said in post on Truth Social.
His post on Truth Social came after an Axios report that the US and Iran were close to an agreement that would bring their two-month war to an end.
The outlet reported on Wednesday that Washington expects responses from Tehran on several key points to form the basis of a one-page memo within the next 48 hours.
Oil prices fell sharply in response, while US stock futures, equities listed in Europe and global sovereign bonds rallied.
On Monday morning, the US Navy began guiding commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. By Tuesday afternoon, the operation had been suspended.
Trump announced the reversal on Truth Social, citing the “request of Pakistan and other Countries” and “great progress” towards a “complete and final agreement” with Iran.
Earlier on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that Operation Epic Fury, the air and naval campaign launched against Iran on February 28, was “concluded”.
What Washington now seeks, he said, is a “memorandum of understanding for future negotiations”.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards responded by saying that if US "threats" had ended, passage through the strait would be possible under new terms it was putting in place, without giving details.
Iran has effectively shut the strait to all shipping apart from its own since the United States and Israel launched the war on February 28. In April, Washington imposed its own separate blockade of Iranian ports.
Earlier, Trump announced a pause to "Project Freedom", a mission he had announced two days earlier to guide ships through the blocked strait.
Trump's Project Freedom mission to use the US Navy to open the strait failed to persuade merchant ships that it was safe, while provoking new attacks from Iran, which said it was expanding the area under its control to include swathes of the coastline of the United Arab Emirates, on the strait's far side.
While the mission was in effect, Iranian drones and missiles hit several ships in and around the strait and targets in the UAE, including the only major Emirati oil port on the coast beyond the strait which allowed exports without crossing through it.