War in Middle East
Main Points
- US President Donald Trump is repeating his earlier remarks that Iran is “begging to make a deal” at a cabinet meeting at the White House
- Trump also repeated his disappointment with Nato, again accusing the alliance of doing “absolutely nothing”
- Iran and US harden positions as Tehran keeps its grip on Strait of Hormuz
- US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said Iran has “repeatedly rebuffed on everything we asked for” in negotiations
- The Israeli military killed the naval commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in an overnight attack, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz, said
- Iran has rejected a 15-point US proposal for ending the war in the Middle East.
- Irish consumers face months of rising prices as the conflict squeezes oil supplies and fuels inflation, ESRI and Central Bank warn.
Key Reads
- Global Briefing: Blaming Israel for US war on Iran lets Trump off the hook. Sign up for the newsletter here.
- How many missiles does Iran have left?
- Analysis: Why Trump’s rehashed 15-point Iran plan will not appease Tehran
- Trump turns on Starmer over Iran war: ‘What if Donald shouts at me?’
Trump says Iran allowed some oil tankers through strait as sign of good faith
Iran is allowing some oil tankers through strait of Hormuz as a sign of good faith for talks, Trump has said.
Iran allowed 10 oil tankers to pass through the strategic strait as a “present” to show it was serious about negotiations to end the war.
“[Iran said] we’re going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil. This was two days ago. And they’ll sail up tomorrow. That was three days ago. And I didn’t think much about it,” Trump told reporters.
“And then I watched the news and they said… something’s unusual happening. There are eight boats that are going right up the middle of the strait.
“And actually they then apologized for something they said, and they said, we’re going to send two more boats. And we ended up being 10 boats”.
US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said Iran has “repeatedly rebuffed on everything we asked for” in negotiations.
Addressing Trump, he said the 15 point action list had been “circulated through the Pakistani government, acting as the mediator, and this has resulted in strong and positive messaging and talks, as you just indicated to the press”.
“You have instructed us that your preference is always peace and that we should make that our priority. We have delivered that message, sir, along with the 15 points for peace. Finally, we have told Iran one last thing; don’t miscalculate again,” he added.
Trump gives updates on Iran war in cabinet meeting at the White House
Trump is now speaking at a cabinet meeting in the White House where he is delivering updates on the Iran war.
Repeating his earlier remarks that Iran is “begging to make a deal”, he said: “They are begging to make a deal. Not me. They’re begging to make a deal”.
The Gulf region and the US were “shocked” by Iran’s retaliatory attacks in the Middle East, he said.
He repeated his disappointment with Nato, again accusing the alliance of doing “absolutely nothing”.
Taking particular aim at the UK, he said in a mocking tone that Britain’s aircraft carriers are “toys” compared to what the US has.
“We had the UK say that we’ll send – this is three weeks ago – we’ll send our aircraft carriers, which aren’t the best aircraft carriers, by the way, they’re toys compared to what we have. But we’ll send our aircraft carrier when the war is over. I said, oh, that’s wonderful, thank you very much. Don’t bother, we don’t need it. We don’t need it, and we don’t need them”.
It would be a “very big mistake” to cancel the UK King’s planned state visit to the US, Washington’s ambassador to the UK has said.
There have been calls for the historic royal trip to be scrapped or delayed because of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
But Warren Stephens argued it would be wrong to call off the trip, which has not yet been officially announced.
In a question and answer session after his speech to the British Chambers of Commerce conference in London on Thursday, Stephens said: “I think that would be a very big mistake.”
He said he could not confirm the visit, but added: “I think he will go and I think it will be a very meaningful trip for him.”