Middle East crisis live: hopes rise for renewed US-Iran talks as Tehran’s foreign minister reported to be heading to Pakistan

US president Donald Trump is sending special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan for talks with the Iran’s foreign minister, CNN reported on Friday, citing two administration officials familiar with the matter.

Vice-president JD Vance is not currently planning to attend but he will be on standby to travel to Islamabad if negotiations progress, CNN said.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah on Friday of trying to “sabotage” efforts to reach a peace agreement with Lebanon.

“We have started a process to reach a historic peace between Israel and Lebanon, and it’s clear to us that Hezbollah is trying to sabotage this,” he said in his first remarks after a ceasefire with Lebanon was extended.

The comments came as the Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets in a south Lebanon village in response to a “ceasefire violation”, after earlier warning residents to evacuate the community.

“A short while ago, the IDF struck military structures in the area of Deir Aames, from which rockets were launched toward the town of Shtula in Israel yesterday,” it said.

“The structures that were targeted were used by the Hezbollah terrorist organisation to advance terrorist activities against IDF soldiers and the State of Israel,” it added.

EU leaders have distanced themselves from a call by the German chancellor Friedrich Merz for the bloc to ease sanctions on Iran as part of a ceasefire deal.

Merz indicated that the EU was willing to gradually ease sanctions on Iran if a comprehensive agreement was reached.

“The easing of sanctions can be part of a process,” Merz said following talks with EU leaders in Cyprus. As Reuters reported, he said: “It is, so to speak, part of the contribution we can make to advance this process and, hopefully, lead to a lasting ceasefire.”

But the heads of the EU institutions said such a move was premature. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, told reporters that sanctions relief “should be conditional on verification of de-escalation” but also “a change to the repression of [Iran’s] own people”.

She said:

That was the reason why we adopted the sanctions regime in the first place, the behaviour of the regime. We should not forget 17,000 young people have been killed in the first month of this year. So the reason for that has to be ended before we can speak about lifting sanctions.

The difference in tone was striking as von der Leyen, like Merz, is a German Christian Democrat, although she does not represent her country in the commission. Other groups outside Iran have estimated that up to 33,000 or more people were killed in the recent crackdown by the regime, before the US-Israeli airstrikes.

The EU currently has 263 senior Iranians and 53 organisations on its blacklist, including the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the morality police, news agencies and prisons. It also imposes a ban on the sale of equipment or finance that could be used by Iranian authorities to repress their people.

The EU also implements wide-ranging UN economic and financial sanctions on Iran intended to curb the regime’s nuclear programme. The European Council president António Costa said it was “too early” to speak about lifting sanctions, adding that “we don’t have a good experience with Iran”. He said the Iranian regime had failed to persuade the international community they would not develop a nuclear weapon, adding:

And we cannot ignore the nature of the regime, the violence of the regime against their people and the thousands of people they killed very recently.

The immediate reopening of the strait of Hormuz without restrictions is “vital” for the world, European Council president Antonio Costa said Friday, after talks with regional leaders including from Lebanon and Syria.

“The strait of Hormuz must immediately reopen without restrictions and without tolling, in full respect of international law and the principle of freedom of navigation. This is vital for the entire world,” Costa told a news conference in Cyprus.

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi will hold bilateral talks during a brief visit to Pakistan on Friday, two Pakistani sources aware of the talks told Reuters.

Araqchi will discuss his side of the proposal for talks with the United States over the Iran war, which will then be conveyed to Washington, the sources said.

Indonesia once again strongly condemned an Israeli attack in Lebanon that resulted in the death of a fourth Indonesian peacekeeper, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

The peacekeeper sustained severe injuries due to an artillery explosion from an Israeli tank on 29 March and the ministry announced on Friday that he has passed away. Three other Indonesian peacekeepers had also died due to the attack.

Indonesia urged the UN to conduct a thorough, transparent and accountable investigation into the deaths of its Unifil peacekeepers.

Here’s a snapshot of the latest Middle East news to bring you up to speed.

• US defence secretary Pete Hegseth says transit is occurring in the strait of Hormuz, but limited and with risk. He says this is Iran’s fault for threatening vessels, including cruise ships.

• Iran’s foreign minister set to travel to Pakistan, raising hope for renewed talks to end war. Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi will begin a trip on Friday that includes visits to Islamabad, Muscat and Moscow, Iranian state media said.

• Donald Trump has announced that a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon would be extended by three weeks. Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office alongside the participants in the meeting, said he hoped the two countries’ leaders would meet during the additional three-week cessation of hostilities.

• A leaked Pentagon internal email proposes that the US should reassess its support for Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands because the UK did not do enough to assist the American bombing of Iran. The UK responded by saying that sovereignty of the Falkland Islands remains with the UK.

• In the same leaked email, the US outlined other “retaliatory measures” it felt was suitable due to what it deemed a lack of support from Nato – including suspending Spain from the alliance. It is not clear there is any mechanism to suspend countries from Nato.

• Human Rights Watch has called on Lebanon to join the international criminal court, after Israeli forces killed Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil and wounded her colleague Zainab Faraj in an airstrike earlier this week.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that he had received successful treatment for early-stage prostate cancer, without specifying when the treatment took place.

After the publication of his annual medical report, he said he is “in excellent physical condition” after successful surgery for an enlarged benign prostate.

In his social media post, he said he chose to undergo treatment because “when I’m given information in time about a potential danger, I want to address it immediately”.

Treatment had “removed the problem and left no trace of it”, he added. Netanyahu said that he had delayed the release of the medical report by two months to prevent Iran from spreading “false propaganda against Israel“. In March, during the fighting with Iran, rumours that circulated on social media and aired on Iranian state media claimed that Netanyahu had died.

The Iranian ambassador has told the BBC that the US must ends its blockade on Iranian ports if negotiations are to continue between them.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme Ali Bahreini, the Iranian ambassador to the UN in Geneva, calls the blockade a “significant breach” of the ceasefire. He added that they are not looking to negotiate in order to give a chance to the “other side to prepare more to attack Iran”.

He calls for a “realistic approach from the United States by recognising Iran’s rights and Iran’s reasonable demands”.

The UAE has said rebuilding trust between Abu Dhabi and Tehran will take “ages and ages”, given the number of times Iran has targeted the United Arab Emirates during the war.

“You can’t be attacked with 2,800 missiles and drones and then talk to me about trust. That will take ages and ages,” said UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash at a World Policy Conference in France.

The top official said that 89 percent of the Iranian attacks targeted “civilians, civilian infrastructure, energy infrastructure”.

“Tehran was telling the Arab Gulf countries that ’you don’t matter in my calculations,’ and I think this is going to last for a very long time,” he said.

He continued: “To the region – to the United Arab Emirates and other countries, Iran will be seen as a strategic threat.”

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi will begin a trip on Friday that includes visits to Islamabad, Muscat and Moscow, Iranian state media said.

“The purpose of this visit is to hold bilateral consultations, and discuss current developments in the region, as well as the latest situation in the war imposed by the United States and the Israeli regime against Iran,” the state news agency IRNA said.

The Pentagon chief says he would welcome a “serious European effort” over the strait of Hormuz and refers to the recent conference of leaders as a “silly conference”.

He says:

I think it’s a wake up call. It’s a wake up call for countries around the world. Either you have capabilities or you don’t.

Otherwise, you’re at the behest of a country, like Iran and the only country that can do something about it, is the United States military.

He adds that any attempts by Iran to lay more mines in the strait would constitute a violation of the ceasefire.

Hegseth says transit is occurring but limited and with risk. He says this is Iran’s fault for threatening vessels, including cruise ships.

“This is a real, full blockade,” he says. “We’ll use up to and including lethal force if necessary – and that stopped. And other ships have have taken note of that.

“So any ships that have attempted, there’s been levels of escalation, but none that far. And they’ve turned around.”

“This should not be America’s fight alone,” Hegseth says, saying that Europe and Asia benefit from the strait of Hormuz more than the US.

He says European leaders should have “less fancy conferences… and get in a boat”.

“This is more their fight than ours,” says Hegseth, despite the fact it is literally an American fight.

He adds:

Being an ally is a two-way street.

Joint chiefs of the staff chair Dan Caine is now providing his own update on the blockade.

US defense secretary Pete Hegseth opens the press conference in much the same style as his previous ones: by trumpeting America’s military success in Iran and saying Iran has an opportunity to strike a “good deal”.

He says the blockade in the strait of Hormuz is “growing” and has “gone global”, referring to the seizure of two Iranian dark fleet vessels.

“We are in control; nothing in, nothing out,” he says. He adds that 34 ships have been turned away from the strait so far.

Hegseth is now repeating the exact same lines from previous press conferences, speaking about the Iranian navy “sitting at the bottom of the sea” and praising president Donald Trump’s “fortitude”.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi is expected to travel to Pakistan for talks by this weekend, sources have told AP.

The diplomat is expected to travel with a small team and a US logistics ⁠and security ​team is ​already ​in Islamabad.

This comes after an effort to hold direct talks between Washington and Tehran collapsed at the beginning of the week. Pakistan has been trying to restart ceasefire talks between Iran and the United States.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

At 8am ET (1pm BST), US defense secretary Pete Hegseth and chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine will be hosting a press conference on Operation Epic Fury.

You can watch below. We will be reporting live as this happens.

Iran’s footballers will be welcome at this year’s World Cup, secretary of state Marco Rubio said Thursday, distancing the United States government from a proposal that Italy could take their place in the tournament.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Rubio denied that the government had asked the Iranian team not to come to the World Cup – but warned the US may yet bar entry to members of the Iranian delegation it judged to have ties to Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Washington and several other governments.

No one “from the US has told them they can’t come,” Rubio said of Iran’s World Cup participation. “The problem with Iran, it would be not their athletes, it would be some of the other people [they] would want to bring with them, some of whom have ties to the IRGC,” Rubio said. “We may not be able to let them in, but not the athletes themselves.”

Rubio was responding to a reported proposal from Italy-born US special envoy Paolo Zampolli, who told the Financial Times he had floated the idea of Italy taking Iran’s World Cup place to US president Donald Trump and football’s world governing body Fifa.

Read the full report here: