Iran's state media claimed on Saturday that its armed forces issued a stark warning to a US Navy destroyer approaching the Strait of Hormuz — turn back within 30 minutes or be targeted — and that the ship complied. Washington told a different story entirely. A US official said that several Navy ships had in fact crossed the strait, describing the operation as one that 'focused on freedom of navigation through international waters,' and adding that the US had received no such threat from Iran.
The contradictory accounts emerged as US Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner sat across the table from Iranian officials in Islamabad, the highest-level direct talks between the two sides in decades. The timing was not incidental. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz was a central condition of the fragile two-week ceasefire agreement, and Iran's closure of the strait has proved its biggest strategic advantage in the war.
