4 hours ago
4
Summary
Welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
The fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran showed further strain on Friday, a day before delegations from both countries are due to meet in Pakistan, as Donald Trump accused Tehran of breaching promises on the strait of Hormuz and Israel struck Lebanon with attacks that Iran claims violate the truce.
Trump said in a social media post late Thursday that Iran was doing a “very poor job” of allowing oil to go through the strait. “That is not the agreement we have!“
There is no sign Iran is lifting its near-total blockade of the strait, which has caused the worst-ever disruption to global energy supplies. Tehran cited Israel’s ongoing attacks on Lebanon, which included the heaviest strikes of the war on Wednesday, as a key sticking point.
In the first 24 hours of the ceasefire, which Trump announced on Tuesday, just a single oil products tanker and five dry bulk carriers sailed through the strait, which typically carries a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows and 140 ships a day before the war.
-
Donald Trump has said he is “very optimistic” a peace deal with Iran was within reach as a diplomatic delegation led by his vice-president JD Vance prepared to head to Pakistan for high-stakes talks aimed at ending the war this weekend. Iran’s leaders “talk much differently when you’re at a meeting than they do to the press. They’re much more reasonable,” the US president said, in line with his administration’s narrative that there’s a disconnect between what Tehran says publicly and privately.
-
Trump also confirmed that he had asked Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to be “more low-key” in Lebanon to help ensure the success of the upcoming US-Iran negotiations in Islamabad. “I spoke with Bibi and he’s going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key,” Trump told NBC News, adding that he believed Israel was “scaling back” its operations in Lebanon.
-
Netanyahu said he had instructed his cabinet to begin direct negotiations with Lebanon aimed at disarming Hezbollah – all the while insisting that “there is no ceasefire” in Lebanon and that Israel will “continue to strike Hezbollah with force”.
-
Israel has since launched a fresh wave of strikes against what it called “Hezbollah launch sites” in Lebanon, after the IDF earlier ordered people to flee Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs. Later in the day, Hezbollah said it had fired a rocket salvo towards northern Israeli settlements.
-
While Israel continues to insist that the war will go on and “talks will be held under fire”, Lebanon is demanding a ceasefire before direct negotiations can begin. Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese president, said this was “the only solution”. Lebanon is also insisting that it needs the US as a mediator and guarantor of any agreement. Those talks will take place next week, hosted by the US state department in Washington.
-
Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian said Israeli strikes on Lebanon violate the ceasefire agreement and would render negotiations meaningless, adding that Iran would not abandon the Lebanese people.
-
The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Lebanon forms “an inseparable part of the ceasefire” deal. In a post on X, he said “there is no room for denial and backtracking”.
-
Keir Starmer also said that Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon “shouldn’t be happening”. The British prime minister also dismissed an argument put forward by US vice-president JD Vance on Wednesday that there had been “a legitimate misunderstanding”, saying the issue “isn’t a technical one of whether it’s a breach of the agreement or not”. It is “a matter of principles as far as I’m concerned”, Starmer said.
-
A statement attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said Iran will take management of the strait of Hormuz into a new phase, but did not elaborate on what that would be. In the statement, read out on state tv, he also said Iran remains determined to “take revenge” for his father, who was assassinated on the first day of the war, and all those killed in the war. “We will certainly demand compensation for each and every damage inflicted, and the blood price of the martyrs and the compensation for the wounded of this war,” he said.
Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Indonesia has said it has submitted a joint statement on peacekeeper security with dozens of allied nations to the United Nations after three of its blue helmets were killed in Lebanon.
In the joint statement, the countries urged the UN Security Council to conduct a thorough investigation into the incidents in southern Lebanon that killed three Indonesian peacekeepers and wounded several others, including from France, Ghana, Nepal, and Poland.
The foreign ministry in Jakarta said 73 countries and UN observer nations supported the statement, delivered by Indonesia’s permanent representative to the UN, Umar Hadi, in New York.
“The safety and security of UN peacekeepers are non-negotiable. We urge the UN Security Council to use all available instruments to strengthen protection for peacekeeping forces amid an increasingly dangerous situation,” the ministry quoted Umar as saying.
“Troop-contributing countries also call for an end to violence in Lebanon, de-escalation of tensions, and encourage all parties to return to the negotiating table to achieve a peaceful settlement,” it added.
Three Indonesian peacekeepers died in two separate blasts in southern Lebanon in late March. A third blast less than a week later – inside a UN facility in southern Lebanon – injured three more Indonesian soldiers.
JD Vance heads to Pakistan this week with orders from Donald Trump to turn the shaky Iran ceasefire into a lasting peace deal.
For the 41-year-old Vance, who has kept a notably low profile during the Middle East conflict, it will be one of the biggest moments of his career. But the man widely regarded as a leading contender in the 2028 US presidential election will face huge challenges too when talks begin Saturday in Islamabad.
“I cannot think of a case where the vice president ran formal negotiations like this,” Aaron Wolf Mannes, a lecturer at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and an expert on the American vice presidency’s role in foreign policy, told the AFP news agency.
This is high risk, high reward.”
Vance built his political brand as an avowed anti-interventionist who wanted to keep America out of any more foreign wars. That has made for a difficult balancing act after Trump launched the Iran war.
The New York Times reported this week that in discussions behind closed doors in the weeks before the war, Vance argued against military action, saying it could cause regional chaos and split Trump’s Maga coalition.
But Vance now suddenly finds himself as Trump’s diplomatic closer for an Iran deal.
Vance will be accompanied by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
One theory of why the vice-president is leading these efforts is that the Iranians may view him as a more likely partner for diplomacy, given his widely reported opposition to the war and general doubts about US interventionism.
“If he can get something that papers it over without dealing with real issues, that’s probably enough,” says Mannes.
But if nothing good comes of this, it raises questions about his competence, which is not going to help him electorally. And of course Rubio’s right there as a potential rival for 2028.”
Islamabad prepares to host historic negotiations between Iran and the US
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
The streets of Islamabad are on strict lockdown as Pakistan’s capital prepares to play host to historic negotiations between Iran and the US that have dangled the promise of an end to war that has devastated the Middle East.
Even as the US-Iran ceasefire looked increasingly precarious, amid Israel’s continued bombardment of Lebanon and disputes over the terms of the talks, Pakistani officials insist that the make-or-break peace negotiations will be going ahead over the weekend as planned
According to Iran’s deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh, Pakistan’s interventions to maintain the peace and protect the fragile ceasefire have continued behind the scenes. Khatibzadeh claims that Pakistan has intervened to stop Iran retaliating against the strikes on Lebanon.
Ahead of the first round of discussions in Islamabad, which are due to take place on Saturday, army personnel and paramilitary rangers have been deployed and security has been beefed up across the capital. A public holiday was declared on Thursday and Friday and the streets remain eerily empty.
Officials have confirmed that the key delegations were due to arrive on Thursday night and Friday morning. On the US side, the White House has said their negotiating team would be led by vice-president JD Vance, with special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner also travelling to Islamabad.
Iranian officials say their delegation will include foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who were both part of the ceasefire negotiations. Senior figures from Iran’s revolutionary guard are also expected to attend.
Due to the high security risks involved, Pakistani officials have confirmed that there were three to four possible venues being lined up for the critical meeting.
The most high-profile attenders are expected to stay in Islamabad’s exclusive five-star Serena hotel, which may also play host to the talks. The hotel has been cleared of its guests and the surrounding 3km of roads have been shut off to cars and put under army control.
The White House has warned US government staff against improperly leveraging their positions to place bets in futures markets in an email, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters is reporting, citing sources.
Some of Trump’s major policy decisions have been preceded by well-timed bets, leading some experts to question whether information had somehow leaked ahead of time.
Shortly ahead the ceasefire announcement earlier this week, a new group of accounts on prediction market platform Polymarket made highly specific, well-timed trades betting there’d be an announcement about a halt in fighting for 7 April. Some quickly pocketed awards, which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits combined.
Exchange data and Reuters calculations also showed an unidentified trader or traders bet $500m on Brent and WTI crude futures in a one-minute period shortly before Trump called a five-day delay on 23 March 23 attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure, after which oil prices fell 15%.
“While he [Trump] seeks a strong and profitable stock market for everyone, members of Congress and other government officials should be prohibited from using nonpublic information for financial benefit,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Reuters in a statement.
The International Monetary Fund will lower global growth forecasts due to the Middle East war, its chief said on Thursday, warning of the conflict’s “scarring effects” despite a fragile ceasefire.
“Even in a best case, there will be no neat and clean return to the status quo ante,” IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said.
Georgieva said that – even in the fund’s “most hopeful scenario” – spiralling energy costs, infrastructure damage, supply disruptions and a loss of market confidence meant growth would be less than expected.
The IMF also anticipates having to provide up to $50bn in immediate financial assistance to countries affected by the war, with food insecurity set to affect at least 45 million people.
Given the spillovers from the war, we expect near-term demand for IMF balance-of-payments support to rise by somewhere between $20 billion and $50 billion, with the lower bound prevailing if ceasefire holds.”
Donald Trump has said that right wing influencers Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones are “not ‘MAGA,’ they’re losers”.
The four had been reliable supporters of Trump for most of his presidency, but in recent weeks have spoken out over their opposition to the war in Iran.
In a long post on his Truth Social platform, the president launched highly personal attacks on the four, who are among the most influential voices in the right wing media ecosystem.
As President, I could get them on my side anytime I want to, but when they call, I don’t return their calls because I’m too busy on World and Country Affairs and, after a few times, they go ‘nasty’.”
The war on Iran has widened the cracks in Trump’s already shaky Maga movement, with many commentators and supporters saying that such an operation is a betrayal of Trump’s promise to put America First and extradite the US from messy foreign conflicts.
Carlson on Monday called the president’s rhetoric toward Iran, including an expletive-filled threat on Easter, “vile” on “every level.” Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones asked on his Info Wars show: “How do we 25th Amendment his ass?” Former Fox News host and popular conservative media personality Megyn Kelly said the recent ceasefire with Iran “sounds very much like surrender,” but conceded that she supported it.
South Korea says senior diplomat Chung Byung-ha will soon depart for Iran as a special envoy to discuss the safety of its citizens and Iran’s chokehold on the strait of Hormuz.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said Friday that Chung plans to push for the freedom of navigation for all vessels, including South Korean.
The ministry earlier said Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi welcomed Seoul’s plan to send a special envoy during a phone call with South Korean foreign minister Cho Hyun on Thursday.
Continued attacks reported in Kuwait
Kuwait has accused Iran and its proxies of launching drone attacks targeting it on Thursday, despite the two-week ceasefire in the Iran war.
Kuwait’s foreign ministry said drone attacks “targeted some vital Kuwaiti facilities” on Thursday night.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) has however denied launching new attacks on Gulf states.
In a statement carried on Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency the IRGC said “if these reports published by the media are true, without a doubt it is the work of the Zionist enemy or America.”
Stocks rise and oil price nudges higher ahead of US-Iran talks
Stocks rose on Friday with investors still optimistic about the shaky US-Iran ceasefire ahead of planned weekend talks, but the price of oil nudged slightly higher.
Equity markets extended the week’s gains in early trading on Friday: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai and Taipei all rose at least 1%, while Singapore and Manila were also well up, though Sydney slipped.
The gains in Asia followed a second healthy run-up on Wall Street, with the S+P 500 on Thursday rising 0.6%
Brent crude climbed 1% to $96.83 a barrel as trading resumed in Asia.
Underlining Iran’s continued control of the Strait of Hormuz, a Botswana-flagged liquified natural gas tanker called the Nidi attempted to travel out of the Persian Gulf via a route ordered by the Revolutionary Guard but suddenly turned around and headed back early Friday, ship-tracking data has shown.
On Thursday, four tankers and three bulk carriers crossed through the Strait of Hormuz, bringing the total number of ships passing through since the ceasefire to at least 12, according to the data firm Kpler.
However, other ships not transmitting their locations may have passed through as well. The strait typically carries a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows and sees around 140 ships a day pass through it during peace time.
Japan plans to release 20 days’ worth of oil reserves from May, prime minister Sanae Takaichi told a cabinet meeting on Friday, to ensure stable domestic supply as conflict in the region continues disrupts global supply.
Japan is dependent on the Middle East for around 95% of its oil. It began releasing reserves on March 16 unilaterally and in coordination with other nations under a plan to make available enough oil to last 50 days. The new release of 20 days worth is additional.
As of 6 April, Japan had enough oil for 230 days in its reserves, including 143 days worth in its public stockpile.
By May, Japan should be able to secure more than a half of oil imports via routes that do not include the strait of Hormuz, Takaichi said, without naming the sources.
Japan has also contacted suppliers in the US, Malaysia, central Asia - such as in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan - Latin America - including Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico - and Africa such as in Nigeria and Angola.
The government has asked suppliers to sell fuel directly to sectors such as healthcare, transportation and agriculture, including green tea producers, livestock and fisheries, Takaichi said.
Summary
Welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East.
The fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran showed further strain on Friday, a day before delegations from both countries are due to meet in Pakistan, as Donald Trump accused Tehran of breaching promises on the strait of Hormuz and Israel struck Lebanon with attacks that Iran claims violate the truce.
Trump said in a social media post late Thursday that Iran was doing a “very poor job” of allowing oil to go through the strait. “That is not the agreement we have!“
There is no sign Iran is lifting its near-total blockade of the strait, which has caused the worst-ever disruption to global energy supplies. Tehran cited Israel’s ongoing attacks on Lebanon, which included the heaviest strikes of the war on Wednesday, as a key sticking point.
In the first 24 hours of the ceasefire, which Trump announced on Tuesday, just a single oil products tanker and five dry bulk carriers sailed through the strait, which typically carries a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows and 140 ships a day before the war.
-
Donald Trump has said he is “very optimistic” a peace deal with Iran was within reach as a diplomatic delegation led by his vice-president JD Vance prepared to head to Pakistan for high-stakes talks aimed at ending the war this weekend. Iran’s leaders “talk much differently when you’re at a meeting than they do to the press. They’re much more reasonable,” the US president said, in line with his administration’s narrative that there’s a disconnect between what Tehran says publicly and privately.
-
Trump also confirmed that he had asked Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to be “more low-key” in Lebanon to help ensure the success of the upcoming US-Iran negotiations in Islamabad. “I spoke with Bibi and he’s going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key,” Trump told NBC News, adding that he believed Israel was “scaling back” its operations in Lebanon.
-
Netanyahu said he had instructed his cabinet to begin direct negotiations with Lebanon aimed at disarming Hezbollah – all the while insisting that “there is no ceasefire” in Lebanon and that Israel will “continue to strike Hezbollah with force”.
-
Israel has since launched a fresh wave of strikes against what it called “Hezbollah launch sites” in Lebanon, after the IDF earlier ordered people to flee Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs. Later in the day, Hezbollah said it had fired a rocket salvo towards northern Israeli settlements.
-
While Israel continues to insist that the war will go on and “talks will be held under fire”, Lebanon is demanding a ceasefire before direct negotiations can begin. Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese president, said this was “the only solution”. Lebanon is also insisting that it needs the US as a mediator and guarantor of any agreement. Those talks will take place next week, hosted by the US state department in Washington.
-
Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian said Israeli strikes on Lebanon violate the ceasefire agreement and would render negotiations meaningless, adding that Iran would not abandon the Lebanese people.
-
The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Lebanon forms “an inseparable part of the ceasefire” deal. In a post on X, he said “there is no room for denial and backtracking”.
-
Keir Starmer also said that Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon “shouldn’t be happening”. The British prime minister also dismissed an argument put forward by US vice-president JD Vance on Wednesday that there had been “a legitimate misunderstanding”, saying the issue “isn’t a technical one of whether it’s a breach of the agreement or not”. It is “a matter of principles as far as I’m concerned”, Starmer said.
-
A statement attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said Iran will take management of the strait of Hormuz into a new phase, but did not elaborate on what that would be. In the statement, read out on state tv, he also said Iran remains determined to “take revenge” for his father, who was assassinated on the first day of the war, and all those killed in the war. “We will certainly demand compensation for each and every damage inflicted, and the blood price of the martyrs and the compensation for the wounded of this war,” he said.
