The US president has abruptly put his Project Freedom operation on hold after just two days<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump has temporarily paused a US military operation to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, but said the blockade of Iranian ports would \u201cremain in full force and effect\u201d until a final agreement with Tehran is reached.
\nThe so-called Project Freedom operation was launched to guide tankers and other commercial vessels through the key energy chokepoint, which accounts for roughly one-fifth of global oil flows. Announcing the mission on Sunday, Trump described it as a humanitarian effort rather than an offensive operation.
\n\u201cBased on the request of Pakistan and other countries,\u201d as well as \u201cgreat progress\u201d in talks with Iranian representatives, Washington and Tehran have \u201cmutually agreed\u201d to put the ship-movement operation on hold \u201cfor a short period,\u201d Trump abruptly announced on Truth Social two days later.
\nJust hours earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told journalists that the original offensive operation, Epic Fury, was \u201cover,\u201d adding: \u201cWe\u2019re now on to this Project Freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
US \u2018lying\u2019 about sinking Iranian boats \u2013 Tehran<\/p>\n
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth also appeared to be caught off guard by the announcement. Earlier on Tuesday, he had boasted at a press conference that \u201chundreds more ships from nations around the world are lining up to transit,\u201d after US forces had \u201cembarrassed\u201d\u00a0Iran with the success of Project Freedom.
\nThe now-aborted operation became the latest flashpoint between Washington and Tehran. Iran\u2019s military warned that any foreign armed force entering the strait would be targeted, insisting that safe passage through the waterway had to be coordinated with Iranian forces.
\nUS Central Command claimed on Monday that American forces had destroyed several small Iranian boats that had allegedly tried to interfere with the mission. Tehran rejected the claim as \u201clies,\u201d while Iranian media separately reported that Iranian forces had fired warning shots near US naval vessels.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Iran hits US Navy ship with missile strike \u2013 media<\/p>\n
\u201cProject Freedom is Project Deadlock,\u201d Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X, warning the US to \u201cbe wary of being dragged back into a quagmire by ill-wishers.\u201d
\nThe Strait of Hormuz has been at the center of the crisis since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February. The US and Iran reached a fragile ceasefire in early April, but tensions have continued over maritime access, with Tehran calling Washington\u2019s naval blockade an \u201cact of war\u201d and a violation of the truce.
\nTrump\u00a0claimed the temporary pause in escorts was intended to give negotiators time to see whether a \u201ccomplete and final agreement\u201d could be finalized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US president has abruptly put his Project Freedom operation on hold after just two days President Donald Trump has temporarily paused a US military operation to escort ships through…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}