Iran urges US to end naval blockade as they trade reparation demands

Iran's president claims he has held a meeting with the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who delivered an appeal for "unity and cohesion" as the country grapples with crippling US santions.

In Washington, US President Donald Trump flips the script of Tehran's call for war reparations and issues demand that Iran pay financial compensation for casualties spanning a 50-year period.

The nearly seven-hour meeting between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Mojtaba Khamenei marks only their second face-to-face talk after Khamenei assumed power in March following a US-Israeli strike that killed his father, the longtime former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Pezeshkian tells IRIB that they discussed people's livelihoods, the state of the market, employment, housing, and problems arising from the US sanctions, without providing details as to when and where they met.

He states Khamenei's primary directive for the administration was to preventing divisions from emerging.

The push for a united front comes as the Iranian government insists the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed to commercial traffic until American forces end naval blockade and aggresive acts against Tehran.

Its foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei notes Monday that under the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314, a naval blockade of this kind amounts to an act of aggression.

He stresses during a weekly press conference: "As long as other US violations continue, the necessary conditions will not be in place for us to say that Strait of Hormuz has become a safe waterway."

While they are holding separate talks with Oman over transit through the strait, including mapping out a temporary shipping corridor, the official says the actual reopening hinges on negotiations with Washington.

Earlier, Tehran also conditioned the reopening on receiving compensation from Washington.

US President Donald Trump instead turns the financial liability back on Iran.

He states they should pay those damages they've done over a 50-year period "for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded."

Meanwhile, a TV station released footage showing damaged boats, warehouses and debris at Yemen's Red Sea port of Mokha in the wake of Sunday's missile and drone attacks by Houthi rebels that killed four military personnel and three civilians.

The strike comes amid the most significant intensification of military activity since a UN-brokered truce took effect in April 2022.