Trump posts Trump Strait map as Iran offers Hormuz reopening deal

US President Donald Trump on Saturday posted an image of the Strait of Hormuz labelled "Trump Strait", shortly after Iran proposed a deal to reopen the waterway within a week if Washington meets a set of conditions. The White House said on Friday that US officials were having "positive and constructive" conversations with mediators on the Iran war, after Iran and the US held hours of indirect talks earlier this week.

The latest developments also included Iranian media reports that President Masoud Pezeshkian has left New York after the United Nations General Assembly, Saudi Arabia's claim that it intercepted a missile launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels, Iraq's effort to secure US sanctions exemptions for some Iranian airline operations, and fresh reports of Israeli settlers tightening control over water sources in the occupied West Bank.

Trump's post on his Truth Social platform early on Saturday was the first public indication of his thinking after Iran floated the new proposal and suggested it could help him politically ahead of the midterm elections.

Semiofficial Iranian media said Pezeshkian had departed New York for Tehran after the annual UN gathering of world leaders. In his speech, Pezeshkian pushed back against Trump's latest threat to "annihilate" the Islamic Republic, but said at the end that Tehran remained open to diplomacy.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told journalists on Friday night that under Tehran's proposal, Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and resume talks on its nuclear programme in seven days if the US lifts its naval blockade of Iranian ports, waives sanctions on Iranian oil sales, and observes a ceasefire that would include Lebanon.

In Saudi Arabia, military spokesperson Maj Gen Turki al-Malki said early on Saturday that a ballistic missile launched by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen had been intercepted and destroyed. He said the missile had been fired towards the southwestern city of Khamis Mushait. The Associated Press said it could not immediately verify the claim independently, and there was no immediate statement of responsibility, though it can take days for the Houthis to issue one.

The Gulf Cooperation Council, which represents Arab Gulf states, condemned the latest Houthi attacks as a "grave escalation and threat to regional security" and urged the international community to respond.

Iraq, meanwhile, said it was in direct contact with the US to seek exemptions from sanctions on Iranian airlines as Washington keeps up economic pressure on Tehran. The Iraqi prime minister's office said it wanted exemptions for certain airports and pointed to humanitarian needs such as medical treatment, education and religious pilgrimages. Many pilgrims from neighbouring Iran visit places including Karbala and Najaf.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers have stepped up efforts to seize natural springs and heritage sites that are important for drinking water, tourism and agriculture, and are becoming harder for the 2.8 million Palestinians there to access. In the Jordan Valley, settlers cut a water pipe to a Palestinian village and redirected it to a pool they named after Herod, the Roman-appointed king of Judea. Israeli rights groups said the move was part of a wider push to claim heritage sites.

The developments together reflected continued diplomatic manoeuvring around Iran, new security tensions involving Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Iraq's attempt to ease the effect of sanctions-linked restrictions, and a deepening struggle over water access and control in the West Bank.

With PTI Inputs

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