WASHINGTON — Iran has reportedly halted talks with the United States in protest of Israel’s military offensive in Lebanon, marking the latest setback to the Trump administration’s push for a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war.  

On Monday, Iran’s state-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported that Tehran’s negotiating team would suspend its exchange of messages with Washington until “the positions of Iran and its allied proxy forces are taken into account.” 

The outlet, which is close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Iran has also decided "to pursue the complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz and to activate other fronts, including the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.” 

The Iran-backed Houthi militant group has previously threatened to leverage its control of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline to target vessels in and around Bab el-Mandeb, the 32-kilometer-wide strait at the Arabian Peninsula’s southern tip. A senior Houthi official told Al-Monitor in April that the group would close the strait “should the aggression against Iran and Lebanon escalate.”