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Trump and former loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene trade jabs as Maga split over Iran widens – US politics live | US news
Trump finds time to pursue social media feud with Marjorie Taylor Greene
Before Donald Trump stepped into his meeting with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, and as the ceasefire with Iran seemed to be falling apart on its first day, the president found time to continue a social-media feud with his former close ally Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Trump, whose pre-presidential career was animated by similar social-media spats with celebrities, gloated on his own platform over the success of his hand-picked candidate to replace Greene in Congress.
“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown’s (GREEN TURNS TO BROWN UNDER STRESS!) seat in Congress has been taken over by a wonderful and talented man, Clay Fuller, who won convincingly,” Trump wrote after Fuller won a special election to retain Greene’s seat for the Republicans in a conservative district of Georgia. “Congratulations to Clay Fuller, a very large improvement over his deranged predecessor!” the president added.
Trump also noted that he had won the heavily Republican district by almost 37 points in the 2024 presidential election, but that only served to underscore the size of the swing to the Democrats, whose candidate in Tuesday’s special election, came within 12 points of the Trump-endorsed Republican, Clay Fuller.
As voters went to the polls on Tuesday, Greene had replied to Trump’s threat to erase Iranian civilization by calling on the cabinet and Congress to remove the president through the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution. “25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness,” the recently resigned congresswoman wrote on X.
Greene’s replacement, Fuller, is a former judge advocate general in the US air force, who joins Congress in the wake of the president’s threat to destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure, which is a clear war crime according to many of his former colleagues.
Minutes after Trump’s post on Wednesday, Greene responded by pointing out that, despite Trump’s boast about the value of his endorsement of Fuller, her former district “was never in danger of flipping” to the Democrats, and noted that while she had defeated the Democratic candidate Shawn Harris by nearly 29 points in 2024, Fuller only beat Harris on Tuesday by less than 12 points.
“Trump flipping MAGA from America First to America Last, covering up for the Epstein files, and betraying key campaign promises of no more foreign wars has been the best help for the Democrats,” Greene wrote. “Sad!”
Key events
Trump renews threats against Nato and Greenland after meeting Nato secretary-general
After an unusual private meeting at the White House on Wednesday with Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, Donald Trump seemed to renew his threats against the defensive military alliance for not helping fight the US-Israeli war on Iran, and hinted that he could again try to seize Greenland from Nato member Denmark.
Trump, who normally revels in conducting public meetings with visiting dignitaries on television, initially made no statement on what was discussed with Rutte, but after the former Dutch prime minister who leads the military alliance went on CNN to cast the discussion as a “frank and open” discussion “between friends”, the president issued a blistering, all-caps social media post aimed at further unsettling Nato.
“NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!” the president wrote in a manner that did little to dispel concerns that he might try to withdraw from the military alliance.
Rutte, who has drawn criticism in Europe for seeming to endorse Trump’s decision to launch a war of choice against Iran without consulting Nato allies, and then scolding them for not helping to deal with its consequences, told CNN that “some” Nato members had failed in their response to Trump’s angry demand that they take part in the war on Iran by forcing open the strait of Hormuz.
After no Nato country responded to Trump’s demand for help, he announced that the US did not want or need any such help.
“I really admire his leadership,” Rutte also said of Trump, while refusing to say whether he left the meeting reassured that the US would remain in Nato, or alarmed that Trump might try to withdraw from it.
Asked if he believed NATO countries were tested and failed, Rutte said: “Some of them yes, but a large majority of European countries, and that’s what we discussed today, have done what they promised before in a case like this.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that withdrawing from Nato is something the president “has discussed” and would likely raise with the secretary general.
Before his meeting with Trump, a jovial Rutte posed with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, at the state department.
While Trump has spoken as if he has the power to pull the US out of Nato, a 2023 law, co-sponsored by then senator Rubio, requires Senate approval, or an act of Congress before a president can suspend, terminate or withdraw US membership in Nato.
At the time, Rubio said the law would “ensure that current and future U.S. Presidents cannot leave NATO without rigorous debate and consideration by the U.S. Congress with the input of the American people”.
Reporter attacks ‘low-quality lawyering from Trump’s DOJ’ in complaint against whistleblower
Seth Harp, a journalist who based parts of his book, The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces, on interviews with Courtney Williams, an army veteran who worked with US special forces, condemned the Trump administration’s arrest of Williams on Wednesday on social media.
“The FBI is incapable of solving real crimes, like all the murders on Fort Bragg involving elite soldiers trafficking drugs, so they settle for retaliating against courageous whistleblowers like Courtney Williams, whose only ‘crime’ was telling the truth about Delta Force,” Harp just wrote in response to an X post from Kash Patel, the FBI director, about the arrest.
“Typical low-quality lawyering from Trump’s DOJ,” Harp wrote in another post, which showed a page from the criminal complaint against Williams filed on Wednesday in federal court in North Carolina which referenced him arranging for his source to mail him a computer drive.
“The jump drive ‘likely contained classified NDI’?” the journalist wrote in reference to the assumption by prosecutors that the drive had secret national defense information on it. “That’s the standard for indicting someone?”
“News flash,” he added, “the drive contained an incredibly boring and tedious 100% public EEOC complaint THAT WAS TOO BIG TO SEND VIA EMAIL”.
FBI arrests former special forces employee for allegedly leaking classified information to a journalist
The US justice department announced on Wednesday that the FBI has arrested Courtney Williams, a military veteran who later worked in support of Delta Force, a covert US commando unit, after she was indicted for her “alleged transmission of classified national defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it, including a journalist”.
The criminal complaint against Williams, filed in federal court in North Carolina, details communication between Williams and a journalist who is not named, but, as the legal journalist Chris Geidner notes, the reporter Seth Harp wrote about Williams in his book, The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces, and in an excerpt from the book published by Politico last year.
According to complaint, investigators found that someone using Williams’s phone had spoken with a journalist for nearly five hours, and “exchanged approximately 180 text messages with the Journalist between 2022 and 2025.”
Harp provided the following statement on the charging of Williams to WRAL, a North Carolina news station:
“Courtney Williams is a brave whistleblower and truth-teller. Former Delta Force operators disclose ‘national defense information’ on podcasts and YouTube shows every day, but the government is going after Courtney for the sole reason that she exposed sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the unit. This is a vindictive act of retaliation, plain and simple.”
The arrest was celebrated on social media by the FBI director, Kash Patel.
“Let this serve as a message to any would-be leakers: we’re working these cases, and we’re making arrests,” Patel wrote. “This FBI will not tolerate those who seek to betray our country and put Americans in harm’s way.”
Vance claims not to know Vatican ambassador reportedly reprimanded by Pentagon
Speaking to reporters in Hungary on Wednesday, the US vice-president, JD Vance, claimed not to recognize the name of the Vatican ambassador to the United States when he was asked about reports that a Pentagon official had reprimanded the Catholic diplomat, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, over the American-born pope’s opposition to US militarism.
Vance, whose new book is about his conversion to Catholicism, then acknowledged that he had met the cardinal, who has represented the church in Washington DC since 2016, and hosted a prayer breakfast that Vance spoke at last year, but the vice-president suggested that he had no idea if the reporting, that a senior Pentagon official, Elbridge Colby, had indeed summoned the cardinal in January.
According to reporting from the conservative Free Press, confirmed on Wednesday by the newsletter Letters From Leo, Colby and his aides were enraged by Pope Leo’s January declaration that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.”
“America,” Colby and his colleagues reportedly told the cardinal, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
According to Letters From Leo, “some Vatican officials were so alarmed by the Pentagon’s tactics that they shelved plans for Pope Leo XIV to visit the United States later this year.”
As close observers of Vance’s career have pointed out, it was hard to believe that he had not heard about the reported meeting before being asked about it, given the central role Catholicism plays in his public persona, and the fact that he personally introduced his friend Colby at the Pentagon official’s Senate confirmation hearing last year.
Colby, also a Catholic, is the grandson of William Colby, a devout Catholic who served as CIA director for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. William Colby’s daughters celebrated their first communions at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome while he was posted there for the CIA during the 1950s.
The journalist Seymour Hersh said in a 2011 documentary by Carl Colby, one of the CIA director’s sons, that the late CIA director had been a source for Hersh’s reporting in the 1970s that revealed illegal domestic spying by the CIA.
Trump finds time to pursue social media feud with Marjorie Taylor Greene
Before Donald Trump stepped into his meeting with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, and as the ceasefire with Iran seemed to be falling apart on its first day, the president found time to continue a social-media feud with his former close ally Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Trump, whose pre-presidential career was animated by similar social-media spats with celebrities, gloated on his own platform over the success of his hand-picked candidate to replace Greene in Congress.
“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown’s (GREEN TURNS TO BROWN UNDER STRESS!) seat in Congress has been taken over by a wonderful and talented man, Clay Fuller, who won convincingly,” Trump wrote after Fuller won a special election to retain Greene’s seat for the Republicans in a conservative district of Georgia. “Congratulations to Clay Fuller, a very large improvement over his deranged predecessor!” the president added.
Trump also noted that he had won the heavily Republican district by almost 37 points in the 2024 presidential election, but that only served to underscore the size of the swing to the Democrats, whose candidate in Tuesday’s special election, came within 12 points of the Trump-endorsed Republican, Clay Fuller.
As voters went to the polls on Tuesday, Greene had replied to Trump’s threat to erase Iranian civilization by calling on the cabinet and Congress to remove the president through the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution. “25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness,” the recently resigned congresswoman wrote on X.
Greene’s replacement, Fuller, is a former judge advocate general in the US air force, who joins Congress in the wake of the president’s threat to destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure, which is a clear war crime according to many of his former colleagues.
Minutes after Trump’s post on Wednesday, Greene responded by pointing out that, despite Trump’s boast about the value of his endorsement of Fuller, her former district “was never in danger of flipping” to the Democrats, and noted that while she had defeated the Democratic candidate Shawn Harris by nearly 29 points in 2024, Fuller only beat Harris on Tuesday by less than 12 points.
“Trump flipping MAGA from America First to America Last, covering up for the Epstein files, and betraying key campaign promises of no more foreign wars has been the best help for the Democrats,” Greene wrote. “Sad!”
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said Democrats in the upper chamber would force a vote on a war powers resolution to limit the administration’s military campaign in Iran when Congress returns from recess next week. “This war has made us worse off today than before it started,” Schumer said at a press conference in New York, noting the cost of the war and the effect on gas prices. “This is one of the very worst military and foreign policy actions that the United States has ever taken.”
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During a White House press briefing, Karoline Leavitt chided the press for allegedly “misreporting” that Donald Trump is working from the original 10-point plan put forward by Tehran. She offered a muddled explanation about which proposal the administration agreed to, but said that Iran actually put forward a “more reasonable and entirely different and condensed plan to the president”. Leavitt also confirmed that the ceasefire deal with Iran does not include Lebanon, noted that JD Vance would lead negotiating talks with the Iranian regime in Islamabad over the weekend, defended the president’s social media threats to eradicate a “whole civilization”, and warned that any further disruption to the strait of Hormuz is “completely unacceptable”.
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The House oversight committee has signaled it will continue to seek testimony from former attorney general Pam Bondi after she was ousted from her role last week. A committee spokesperson said the justice department informed the panel Bondi would no longer appear for a 14 April deposition, since she was subpoenaed as in her capacity as attorney general. The top oversight Democrat, Robert Garcia, said in a statement on Wednesday that Bondi was “trying to get out of her legal obligation to testify”. If Bondi defies the subpoena, Garcia added, “we will begin contempt charges in Congress”.
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At a Pentagon press conference, Pete Hegseth said that Iran “begged for this ceasefire”, and claimed that Operation Epic Fury “decimated” Iran’s military. He went on to extol that the two-week ceasefire signals a decisive victory, and listed several Iranian officials who have been killed since the war began at the end of February. “The new Iranian regime was out of options and out of time, so they cut a deal,” Hegseth said.
Despite the ongoing congressional recess, House Democrats will ask unanimous consent to pass a war powers resolution during tomorrow’s pro forma session, according to a source familiar.
Representative Glenn Ivey, of Maryland, will lead the effort, and invite all members who are in Washington tomorrow to join.
The motion is unlikely to succeed, since a single objection would block unanimous consent and require Democrats to pursue a formal vote on the resolution.
In a short while, Donald Trump will hold a meeting with Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general.
Rutte has arrived at the White House, but as of now sit-down is still closed to the press.
Earlier, Karoline Leavitt told reporter that withdrawing from Nato is something the president “has discussed” and will likely discuss further with the secretary general. This comes after Trump has routinely criticized the alliance for the reluctance of member countries to offer support for the US military campaign in Iran.
During her press briefing today, the press secretary confirmed that the ceasefire deal with Iran does not include Lebanon, where Israel continues to launch strikes, and that has “been relayed to all parties”.
In a concurrent address, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, echoed the news from Washington, as his country continues its attacks against Hezbollah. According to Lebanon’s civil defence, Israeli attacks have killed at least 254 people across the country today.
Leavitt also noted that Trump is dispatching his negotiating team, led by JD Vance, and special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to Islamabad for talks this weekend.
“The first round of those talks will take place on Saturday morning local time, and we know we look forward to those in-person meetings,” she said.
White House defends Trump’s comments threatening to wipe out a ‘whole civilization’
During today’s press briefing, Karoline Leavitt defended the president’s comments on Truth Social that a “whole civilization” would die if a deal with Iran was not reached.
“[Trump’s] very tough rhetoric and his tough negotiating style is what has led to the result that you are all witnessing today,” Leavitt said. “It was the Iranians who backed down, not President Trump.”
The press secretary went on to say that Trump “absolutely has the moral high ground over the Iranian terrorist regime”.
Four people in a minibus were also taken to hospital, Leicestershire Police say.
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Middle East crisis live: US and Iranian envoys arrive in Islamabad for conditional peace talks | US-Israel war on Iran
Interim summary
For those of you just joining us, welcome to our live coverage of events in the Middle East with talks between Iranian and US officials scheduled to begin in Islamabad. Stay tuned here for all the updates – but first, a quick recap.
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The US delegation has touched down ahead of high-stakes talks with the United States on Saturday, joining Iran’s delegation which had arrived earlier. The US side is led by the vice-president, JD Vance, alongside the special envoy, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
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Iran’s delegation is headed by the powerful parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghaliba, reportedly accompanied by Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister; Ali Akbar Ahmadian, secretary of Iran’s defence council; Abdolnaser Hemmati, governor of Iran’s central bank; and several members of the Iranian parliament. Ghalibaf said earlier on Friday that two previously agreed measures – a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets – “must be fulfilled before negotiations begin”. Israel and the US have denied that the ceasefire extends to Lebanon.
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The planned talks come as Trump threatened fresh strikes if talks fail, adding that the Iranians “have no cards” and the only reason they are alive “is to negotiate”. Trump told the New York Post that the US is loading its warships with the “best weapons” in case talks with Tehran fail. “And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them and we will be using them very effectively,” he said.
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Meanwhile, Lebanon and Israel have agreed to meet in Washington on Tuesday to discuss a ceasefire and to set a date to begin talks. The conversation on Tuesday will be mediated by the US and take place at the state
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Lebanon’s health ministry has updated the death toll from Israel’s most brutal strikes on the country in years on Wednesday to 357 killed. It brings the total killed in Lebanon since Israel renewed its offensive on 2 March to more than 1,953 people. The number of people wounded stands at 6,303, the health ministry added.
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US intelligence reports that China is preparing to send new air defence systems to Iran over the new few weeks, CNN reports, citing anonymous sources. The US state department, White House and Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
Key events
Shah Meer Baloch
In an address to the nation before the talks, Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said the upcoming US-Iran talks in Islamabad were “make or break,” warning the next phase will determine whether a lasting ceasefire can be secured.
An Iranian delegation led by speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf landed in Islamabad on Friday night, with Pakistani jets escorting the Iranian planes as they entered the country’s airspace. Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, received the Iranian delegation led by Ghalibaf.
Ghalibaf said in a statement after reaching Islamabad: “Iran has come in good faith, but doesn’t trust the US. Iran is ready for an agreement if the US presents a genuine deal and recognises Iran’s rights.”
A statement by the foreign minister, Dar, expressed hope for constructive talks. Dar said Pakistan would continue to facilitate sustainable and long-lasting solution between the parties. He said he hoped the both parties would engage in constructive talks.
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Here’s the full list of members of the Iranian delegation.
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Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the head of the delegation and the Iranian parliamentary speaker;
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Seyed Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister;
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Reza Amiri Moghadam, the ambassador to Pakistan;
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Ali Akbar Ahmadian, a member of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran;
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Ali Bagheri Kani, the deputy to the Supreme National Security Council and former acting foreign minister;
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Esmael Ahmadi Moghadam, the president of the National Defense university;
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Mohammad Jafari, the assistant to the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council;
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Naser Hemati, the governor of Iran’s central bank;
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Kazim Gharibabadi, a deputy foreign minister;
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Majid Takht e Ravanchi, a deputy foreign minister;
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Valiollah Nouri, a deputy foreign minister;
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Esmail Baghaei, a deputy foreign minister and spokesperson for the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs;
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Abolfazl Amouei, an Iranian MP;
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and Mohammad Nabavian, an Iranian MP.
As we wait for the Islamabad talks to commence, the conflict in the Middle East continues as we see in these images from the last 24 hours.
The UK will host a strait of Hormuz meeting next week, bringing together multiple countries aiming to restore free movement of ships through the strait, which has been blockaded by Iran since the beginning of the war and inflicted heavy damage on the global economy.
A British official told AP that the meeting will oppose the idea of tolls being charged for passage through the waterway, as proposed by Iran as part of ceasefire negotiations.
The meeting follows a foreign minister’s call on 2 April involving about 40 countries and a military planning meeting attended by about 30 nations. The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said that it is essential to have a “viable plan” to reopen the strait and get the global economy moving.
Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
US delegation touches down in Islamabad
A plane carrying the US envoys headed for talks with Iran has touched down in Pakistan’s Islamabad, sources told Reuters.
The delegation is led by the US vice-president, JD Vance, and includes president Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The Iranian delegation had already arrived earlier.
About 100 members of an advance US team are already in the city, a Pakistani source told Reuters.
The meeting is the first since the outbreak of the war more than a month ago. Both sides have claimed conditions before the onset of negotiations, with Iran demanding an end to Israeli strikes in Lebanon and the US concerned with nuclear weapons and the fate of transit through the strait of Hormuz.
The Athens-based Marine Traffic said on Friday that only 14 vessels – only half of which were loaded – have crossed the strait of Hormuz since a ceasefire was declared, according to AP.
Vessels exiting the Gulf accounted for 70% of vessels, the group posted on X, with “sanctioned or shadow-fleet-linked vessels account[ing] for nearly two-thirds of all crossings”.
Before the conflict, over 100 ships passed through the strait each day – most with oil outbound to Asia.
US intelligence reports China preparing to send air defence systems to Iran in next few weeks
US intelligence indicates China is preparing to deliver new air defence systems to Iran within the next few weeks, CNN reports, citing three people familiar with recent intelligence assessments, according to Reuters.
The network said Beijing could be routing shipments of shoulder-fired anti-air missiles known as MANPADs through third countries to mask their origin, citing unnamed sources. The US state department, the White House and the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
President Trump and Pakistani officials have confirmed that China helped step in to push Iran to accept a tentative ceasefire. But while the Chinese government says it backs the ceasefire, it has not to date tried to claim any diplomatic credit as a security guarantor, with a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington merely saying “as a responsible major power, China will continue to play a constructive role and make efforts to de-escalate tensions”.
Lebanon’s health ministry say the provisional death toll from Israeli strikes on Wednesday had risen from 303 to 357, with 1,223 people wounded, AFP reports, with Israel claiming to have killed 180 militants in those attacks. The Israeli military say Hezbollah had fired around 30 projectiles into Israel and claims to have “dismantled” more than 4,300 Hezbollah sites in Lebanon since fighting began.
Digital monitor Netblocks says Iran’s internet blackout has lasted over a thousand hours, AFP reports.
While Iran’s domestic intranet remains operational, access to the global internet has been restricted since February.
“It is the Israeli public that holds Netanyahu’s fate in its hands,” writes Jonathan Freedland, writing on the role of the Israeli PM in the current Middle East tensions.
“What record will he be able to present to that domestic electorate, the one that judges him by his own lights? … Netanyahu-ism has gained nothing, and it has come at a monstrously high price.”
Read more of his analysis below:
In Islamabad, mutual mistrust remained the order of the day, Agence France-Presse reports.
“We have good intentions but we do not trust,” Iranian state TV quoted the head of the Iranian delegation, parliamentary speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, as saying upon his arrival. “ Our experience in negotiating with the Americans has always been met with failure and broken promises”.
JD Vance, the US vice-president and head of their delegation, was equally wary. “If [the Iranians are] going to try and play us, they’re going to find the negotiating team is not that receptive,” he told reporters.
Donald Trump has said his top priority is to ensure the Islamic republic cannot have a nuclear weapon – “That’s 99% of it” – but stopping the continuing Israeli strikes on Lebanon, a key demand from Iran as a condition of the truce, as well as the precise terms for allowing shipping traffic through the blockaded strait of Hormuz will also play a key part.
The Iranian side say negotiations cannot begin without commitments on Lebanon and on unblocking Iranian assets seized as part of sanctions. Israel and the US’s position is that that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire.
Trump, posting on social media, said “The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways. They only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”
Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif says making progress will be hard work. “This is the stage which, in English, is called the equivalent of ‘make or break’,” he said.
In Islamabad, all routes leading to the Serena hotel, which is hosting the talks, were blocked off with heavy security, with banners and signs along the expressway heralding the “Islamabad Talks”. But in Tehran, a 30-year-old local told AFP he was skeptical negotiations would be successful, describing most of what Trump says as “pure noise and nonsense”.
Islamabad continues to prepare for the upcoming ceasefire talks and the arrivals of delegates in Pakistan’s capital. Here are some new images coming into the newsroom today.
Opening summary
Hello, and welcome to our live coverage of events in the Middle East with talks between Iranian and US officials scheduled to begin in Islamabad in just a matter of hours.
Stay tuned here for all the updates. If you are just joining us, below is a quick recap of the latest news
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Iran’s delegation has arrived in Islamabad ahead of high-stakes talks with the United States on Saturday, which the Pakistani prime minister described as “make or break” for achieving a permanent ceasefire. The delegation is headed by Iran’s powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and he is reportedly accompanied by Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, secretary of Iran’s defence council, Abdolnaser Hemmati, governor of Iran’s central bank, and several members of the Iranian parliament. Ghalibaf said earlier on Friday that two previously agreed measures – a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets – “must be fulfilled before negotiations begin”.
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US vice-president JD Vance, who is en route to Islamabad, said he was “looking forward to negotiations” and expected them to be positive – though he warned Iran not to “play” the US. He is leading the US delegation and will be accompanied by Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
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The planned talks come as Trump threatened fresh strikes if talks fail, adding that the Iranians “have no cards” and the only reason they are alive “is to negotiate”. Trump told the New York Post that the US is loading its warships with the “best weapons” in case talks with Tehran fail. “And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them and we will be using them very effectively,” he said.
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Meanwhile, Lebanon and Israel have agreed to meet in Washington on Tuesday to discuss a ceasefire and to set a date to begin talks. The conversation on Tuesday will be mediated by the US and take place at the state department.
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Lebanon’s health ministry has updated the death toll from Israel’s most brutal strikes on the country in years on Wednesday to 357 killed. It brings the total killed in Lebanon since Israel renewed its offensive on 2 March to more than 1,953 people. The number of people wounded stands at 6,303, the health ministry added.
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Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, said on Friday that 13 state security personnel were killed in an Israeli strike on a governmental building in the southern city of Nabatieh. In a statement, Aoun condemned continued Israeli attacks and said targeting state institutions would not deter Lebanon from defending its sovereignty.
Sion documented his weight loss journey online and was shocked to find a company was using his photos.
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