UAE restores power to Barakah nuclear plant after drone strike, says IAEA – as it happened

We’re wrapping up this live coverage for now but you can see our full report here, as well as this recap of the latest key developments. Thanks for joining us.

• Donald Trump said he postponed a planned military attack on Iran set for Tuesday after it sent a peace proposal to Washington and that there was now a “very good chance” of reaching a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program amid the “serious negotiations” under way.

• The US president said allies in the Middle East had told him they were “getting very close to making a deal” that would leave Iran without nuclear weapons. “It’s a very positive development,” he said, while warning earlier that the US Washington was ready for a “large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice” if an acceptable deal wasn’t reached.

• Iran remained defiant in statements issued on state media after Trump’s announcement, warning the US and its allies against making any further “strategic mistakes or miscalculations” in striking Iran and saying Iranian armed forces were “more prepared and stronger than in the past”.

• The US announced another 30-day extension of a sanctions waiver allowing purchases of Russian seaborne oil to aid “energy-vulnerable” countries hit by the Iran war, reversing plans not to grant an extension.

• Off-site power was restored to a unit of the Barakah nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates after the drone strike on Sunday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it had been told by the UAE.

• Iran’s top security body has announced the formation of a new body to manage the strait of Hormuz and wants to charge ships to traverse.

• Israeli strikes have killed more than 3,000 people in Lebanon since the start of the Hezbollah-Israel war on 2 March, the health ministry said on Monday.

• Lebanese president Joseph Aoun said he would do the “impossible” in order to stop the war with Israel after a ceasefire and direct talks between the countries failed to end the fighting.

• Gaza’s health ministry said at least six people were killed and 40 others injured in Israeli attacks across the territory over the past day.

• Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said its forces had struck groups linked to the US and Israel in the western Iranian province of Kurdistan, near the border with Iraq.

• Oil prices and stock markets worldwide swung through a shaky Monday. The price for Brent crude – the international standard – went from a high of $112 a barrel overnight to below $107 in the morning before turning back higher, and after settling at $112.10, then fell back below $109 after Trump’s announcement on holding off attacking Iran.

• One of Indian billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani’s companies will pay the US Treasury $275m to settle an investigation into whether it violated US sanctions against Iran, the Treasury said.

Looking more at the context of Trump’s announcement, he said he’d planned “a very major attack” but put it off – “for a little while, hopefully, maybe forever” – after US allies in the Gulf asked him to wait for two to three days because they felt they were close to a deal with Iran.

Trump has been threatening for weeks that the ceasefire reached in mid-April could end if Iran did not make a deal, with shifting parameters for striking such an agreement. Over the weekend he warned on social media: “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them.”

The US president has repeatedly set deadlines for Tehran and then backed off, as the AP reports.

But he’s also previously indicated he would hold off on military action to allow talks to continue – only to turn around and launch strikes. That’s what happened at the war’s outset, when he ordered strikes in late February shortly after indicating he would let talks play out.

Trump said the current pause for negotiations was a “very positive development”, while acknowledging there were times in the past when a deal seemed close but nothing came of it.

“But this is a little bit different,” he said.

Before Donald Trump’s announcement he was holding off on attacking Iran, Turkey’s foreign minister said the immediate concern of the negotiations between the US and Iran was keeping the strait of Hormuz open, but that Iran’s nuclear program remained a central issue.

Speaking at a joint news conference with his German counterpart in Berlin, Hakan Fidan said much of Iran’s enriched uranium that could potentially be used for a nuclear weapon was buried under collapsed tunnels after attacks in June that the US launched with Israel. The US has said it is closely monitoring any movements around the stockpile.

“At present, there isn’t a situation that poses a real threat,” Fidan said on Monday, quoted by the AP. “But for this to continue, the parties must reach and conclude a nuclear negotiation among themselves.”

The Turkish minister said he believed Iran was not opposed in principle to complying with nuclear conditions, but added:

The question is what will be given in return, in what order, and under what conditions.”

With talks at a standstill last week, Iran’s foreign minister said on Friday that a lack of trust was the biggest impediment to negotiations.

Iran remained defiant in statements issued on state media after Donald Trump’s announcement he’d paused an attack on Iran, with Tehran warning the US and its allies against making any further “strategic mistakes or miscalculations” in striking Iran.

The Islamic republic also contended the Iranian armed forces were “more prepared and stronger than in the past”.

Iran’s top joint military command, Khatam al-Anbiya, said Iran’s armed forces were “ready to pull the trigger” if the US began new strikes, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported.

“Any renewed aggression and invasion … will be responded to quickly, decisively, powerfully and extensively,” the Khatam al-Anbiya commander, Ali Abdollahi, was quoted as saying.

Oil prices and stock markets worldwide swung through a shaky Monday with uncertainty about what will happen with the Iran war.

The S+P 500 swivelled between gains and losses before finishing with a dip of 0.1% – its second loss since setting an all-time high last week – while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3% and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.5% after both indexes also yo-yoed, the AP reports.

Stocks moved in the opposite direction of oil prices, with the price for a barrel of Brent crude – the international standard – going from a high of $112 overnight to below $107 in the morning before turning back higher.

After settling at $112.10 per barrel, Brent’s price then fell back below $109 after Donald Trump said late in the day that he would hold off attacking Iran on Tuesday at the request of allies in the region, keeping alive hopes of a deal that would reopen the strait of Hormuz.

Just to recap on some important news from earlier, if you’re just joining us:

The US has announced another 30-day extension of a sanctions waiver allowing purchases of Russian seaborne oil to aid “energy-vulnerable” countries hit by the Iran war, reversing plans not to grant an extension.

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X that the Treasury was issuing the 30-day general license after a previous waiver lapsed on Saturday. This would allow temporary access to Russian oil and petroleum products stranded on tankers without violating severe US sanctions on Russian oil majors, he said.

Bessent, who last month told the Associated Press that no further extension of the Russian oil sanctions waiver was planned, on Monday said the measure would help reroute existing supply to countries most in need, allowing them to compete with China for previously sanctioned oil.

The action marks the second time the Treasury has allowed the sanctions waiver to lapse and subsequently extended it.

The Iranian proposal – as described to Reuters by a senior Iranian source – appeared similar in many respects to Iran’s previous offer, which Trump rejected last week as “garbage”.

It would focus first on securing an end to the war, reopening the strait of Hormuz – the vital energy supply route Iran has effectively blockaded – and lifting maritime sanctions.

Contentious issues around Iran’s nuclear programme and uranium enrichment would be deferred to later rounds of talks, the source said.

However, in an apparent softening of Washington’s stance, the senior Iranian source said on Monday that the US had agreed to release a quarter of Iran’s frozen funds – totalling tens of billions of dollars – held in foreign banks. Iran wants all the assets released.

The Iranian source also told Reuters that Washington had shown more flexibility in agreeing to let Iran continue some peaceful nuclear activity under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The US has not confirmed that it agreed to anything in the negotiations.

Donald Trump’s social media post saying he had paused a planned attack on Iran at the request of Gulf leaders came after Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that Tehran’s views on ending the war had been “conveyed to the American side through Pakistan” but gave no details.

A Pakistani source confirmed that Islamabad had shared the latest peace proposal with Washington. But the source suggested progress had been difficult, Reuters is reporting.

The sides “keep changing their goalposts”, the Pakistani source said, adding: “We don’t have much time.”

Pakistan has conveyed messages between the US and Iran since hosting the only round of peace talks last month.

Donald Trump has said the US would be “probably satisfied” if it could reach an agreement with Iran that prevents Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

He added that he delayed planned strikes on Iran after a “very positive development” in talks, and that there was “a very good chance” they could reach a deal.

Asked at a healthcare affordability event at the White House about his Truth Social post earlier, Trump said:

I was asked by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and some others if we could put it off for 2 or 3 days, a short period of time, because they think that they are getting very close to making a deal. And if we can do that where there’s no nuclear weapon going into the hands of Iran, I think and if they’re satisfied, we will be probably satisfied.

“It’s a very positive development,” he said. “But we’ll see whether or not it amounts to anything. We’ve had periods of time where we had, we thought, pretty much getting close to making a deal and, it didn’t work out.”

The US president added:

We’re not going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon. So I was called by these three countries plus others, and they’re dealing directly with our people, and right now Iran.

And there seems to be a very good chance that they can work something out. If we can do that without bombing the hell out of them, I’d be very happy.

US Central Command has said its forces have “redirected” another commercial ship during its blockade of Iran’s ports.

Centcom added that it has “redirected” a total of 85 commercial vessels, and “disabled” four. The US blockade began on 13 April.