Iran MP urges public to save energy amid wartime shortages

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said any negotiated settlement with Iran must include an end to Tehran’s state sponsorship of terrorism through support for Hezbollah and other groups, warning that continued backing for proxies should bring “the severest of consequences.”

“Without that Lebanon and Syria will never be stabilized and Israel will never know peace.”

Graham made the comments while reposting a video of President Donald Trump telling reporters that Washington could return to “Project Freedom” if negotiations do not produce a deal.

“We’ll go a different route if everything doesn’t get signed up, buttoned up,” Trump said. “We may go back to Project Freedom if things don’t happen – but it’ll be Project Freedom Plus, meaning Project Freedom plus other things.”

Graham called the idea of “Project Freedom Plus” “very intriguing” and said it could bear fruit, describing safe passage for international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz “in the face of Iranian resistance as a game changer.”

He said the “plus” part, in his view, would involve more international partners and “limited kinetic activity.”

A Tehran lawmaker called for restrictions or higher fees on ships belonging to countries that back a US-led draft UN Security Council resolution on the Strait of Hormuz.

Kamran Ghazanfari wrote on X that Iran should remember countries that vote in favor of what he called the US resolution backed by “freeloading sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf” and impose either transit bans or sharply increased tolls on vessels belonging to them.

The draft resolution was circulated by the United States and Bahrain and is supported by Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It calls on Iran to stop attacks and threats against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

A senior Iranian business official warned that closing the Strait of Hormuz would harm Iran’s own trade, saying the country has no choice but to reopen the waterway in some form and keep commerce moving.

Davoud Rangi, deputy head of the import management committee at Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, said that if the value of the Strait of Hormuz for Iran is now 100, it could fall to 80 within two months and to 20 or 30 within a year.

He said countries around the Persian Gulf would choose alternative routes for their trade and oil exports.

“The Strait of Hormuz can only have value for us,” Rangi said, adding that closing it would mean Iran was blocking its own trade in the region and inflicting major damage on the country.

US Senator Chris Murphy said he wants the Iran war to end now and supports a deal that constrains Tehran’s nuclear program, but warned that any agreement President Donald Trump reaches would likely be “way worse” than the 2015 nuclear deal he withdrew from.

Murphy said the Obama-era JCPOA limited Iran’s enrichment to 3%, capped its enriched uranium stockpile and required regular inspections to monitor compliance, while Iran pledged never to obtain a nuclear weapon.

He said Trump’s withdrawal from the deal pushed Iran’s nuclear program “into overdrive,” allowing Tehran to make advances it had not made before.

Murphy said Iran had enriched uranium to 20% before the JCPOA, but has now reached 60%, adding that Iran can make a bomb “in months” and “probably 10 of them.”

Murphy said Trump appeared to want a new JCPOA with a temporary ban on enrichment, but argued he is unlikely to get it because Iran now has leverage it did not have in 2015, including the Strait of Hormuz and the collapse of the earlier international coalition that included Russia and China.

He added that Iran could afford to sign a deal limiting its current enrichment because, after Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, Tehran now knows how to make weapons-grade uranium.

“No deal can reverse the knowledge they gained. That’s a disaster Trump made,” Murphy wrote.

Murphy also said Trump would not secure the inspections system obtained under the Obama administration because that depended on international cooperation, adding that “no other nation trusts Trump.”

“His inspections regime, like everything else he touches, will be full of holes,” Murphy wrote.

Murphy said Trump’s “ineptitude” had lowered his expectations for a deal, though he added that “a bad deal could be better than no deal,” with no deal still the most likely outcome.

“But no one should forget how badly Trump and his team have bungled this. It’s unforgivable incompetence,” he wrote.

Iran approved the passage of a Qatari LNG tanker through the Strait of Hormuz in what could become the first transit by a Qatari gas vessel through the waterway since the start of the war, Reuters reported, citing sources.

The tanker Al Kharaitiyat was sailing toward the strait after leaving Qatar’s Ras Laffan terminal for Port Qasim in Pakistan, according to LSEG shipping data.

The gas is being sold by Qatar to Pakistan under a government-to-government deal, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

They said Iran approved the shipment to help build confidence with Qatar and Pakistan, which has been acting as a mediator in the war.

A source briefed on the arrangement said Pakistan had been in talks with Iran to allow a limited number of LNG tankers through the strait as Islamabad seeks to ease an urgent gas shortage.

Iran agreed to assist, and the two sides are coordinating safe passage for the first vessel carrying gas under Pakistan’s agreement with Qatar, its main LNG supplier, the source said.

The vessel, managed by Nakilat Shipping Qatar Ltd and sailing under the Marshall Islands flag, has a cargo capacity of 211,986 cubic meters, according to LSEG data.

The move follows an earlier incident on April 6, when Iran’s Revolutionary Guards halted two Qatari LNG tankers, Al Daayen and Rasheeda, as they headed toward the Strait of Hormuz.