U.S. President Donald Trump told AFP on Friday there were "no sticking points" left for a peace deal with Iran, adding that an agreement was "very close."

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday welcomed Iran's announcement that the crucial Strait of Hormuz will reopen to shipping, but said a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports would continue until a peace deal is signed.

"THANK YOU!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, saying that Iran had announced the narrow waterway was "FULLY OPEN AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE."

Oil prices plunged Friday after Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the vital Strait of Hormuz was "completely open" for commercial tankers and cargo ships during the U.S.-Iran ceasefire.

International benchmark Brent North Sea crude plunged 10 percent to $89.11 a barrel, after earlier falling five percent on U.S.-Iran peace deal hopes.

The leaders of France and the U.K. gathered dozens of countries — but not the United States — on Friday to push forward plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil route choked off by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

The Paris meeting is part of attempts by sidelined nations to ease the impact of a conflict they didn't start and haven't joined, but that has sent the global economy reeling. After the war started on Feb. 28, Iran effectively shut the narrow strait though which a fifth of the world's oil usually passes.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran has agreed to hand over its store of enriched uranium and that the two sides were "close" to a peace deal to end the war that has engulfed the Middle East.

Israel's defense minister warned Iran on Thursday against rejecting a U.S. proposal focused on renouncing "nuclear armament" and vowed to stage "even more painful" strikes on new targets if it did so.

"Iran is standing at a historic crossroads: one path is renouncing the ways of terror and nuclear armament... in line with the US proposal, the other leads to an abyss," Israel Katz said.

More than three dozen Democrats supported an effort by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday to block arms sales to Israel, signaling a growing discontent in the party with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the wars in Gaza and Iran.

The two resolutions to block U.S. sales of bulldozers and bombs to Israel were opposed by all Republicans and rejected 40-59 and 36-63. But Sanders has repeatedly forced votes on the issue to put pressure on his colleagues — both Democrats and Republicans — to oppose Netanyahu's regime.

The influential chief of Pakistan's armed forces visited Iran to meet the head of Tehran's negotiators on Thursday, as Washington considers agreeing to another round of peace talks in Islamabad.

Iranian state television showed Field Marshal Asim Munir meeting Iran's speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led the Iranian delegation at the first U.S.-Iran meeting in Pakistan last week, which ended without a deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said Israel's top priority was to secure the "dismantling" of Hezbollah in its first direct talks with Lebanon in decades.

"In the negotiations with Lebanon, there are two central objectives: first, the dismantling of Hezbollah; second, a sustainable peace... achieved through strength," he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump has indicated peace talks with Tehran could resume this week, as the United States turned the screws Wednesday with a naval blockade it said had cut off maritime trade with Iran.

Trump's hint came as Israel and Lebanon agreed to open direct negotiations after a rare face-to-face meeting in Washington, with Israel's war with Hezbollah ongoing despite the ceasefire with Tehran.