Main Points
- Donald Trump has renewed a demand for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz
- US vice-president JD Vance is to lead mediated talks with Iran
- Oil prices climbed on Friday due to anxiety as tanker traffic through the strait remained largely frozen
- Israel and Hizbullah exchange fire amid fears Israeli attacks on Lebanon are threatening to derail fragile US-Iran peace process
- Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered negotiations with Lebanon after Israeli attacks killed hundreds
Best Reads
- Day of pain in Lebanon: “They’re doing the same thing they did to Gaza,” writes Sally Hayden
- Mark Weiss: Netanyahu faces domestic backlash as Iran conflict enters new phase
Vance says US ‘willing to extend an open hand’ to Iran
US vice president JD Vance, fresh from his attempts to bolster Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban’s failing poll ratings, has departed Washington for Pakistan.
He will lead the American delegation in talks aimed at ending the war in Iran.
He told reporters before he left: “If Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand. If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to find the negotiating team is not that receptive.”
Vance faces a difficult balancing act in trying to bridge the chasm between US and Israeli demands and those of Iran.
Vance said he has got “some pretty clear guidelines” for the talks.
Ukrainian officials urged Russia on Friday to extend a ceasefire it announced for Orthodox Easter this weekend and restart talks to end the war, but people on the streets of Kyiv remained wary, recalling that previous such truces had been quickly violated.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday announced a 32-hour ceasefire starting on Saturday afternoon and running throughout Orthodox Easter until midnight on Sunday.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has repeatedly proposed an Easter truce, quickly said Kyiv would abide by the measure, which Moscow had previously rejected as a “PR stunt”.
“People need an Easter without threats and a real move towards peace, and Russia has a chance not to return to attacks even after Easter,” he said, in comments posted on Telegram early on Friday.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine was proposing that strikes should not resume after Easter, and he drew a parallel with the two-week ceasefire in the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran, announced on Tuesday.
“We believe that a ceasefire is the right strategy to advance diplomatic efforts — whether we are talking about the Middle East or Russian aggression against Ukraine,” he said.
The Kremlin on Friday said the Easter truce was a temporary humanitarian measure, and it wanted a permanent peace deal not a ceasefire, a demand that Ukraine has described as a delaying tactic.
Trump renews demand for the opening of Strait of Hormuz
US president Donald Trump demanded Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz while Israel and Hizbullah exchanged fire, complicating upcoming talks aimed at turning a fragile ceasefire into lasting peace.
The truce announced on Tuesday remains shaky, with Kuwait reporting large-scale drone attacks on “vital” facilities overnight and accusing Iran and its proxy groups of violating the terms of the agreement. There were no further reports of strikes on Friday.
Israel continued to target towns in south Lebanon, where its parallel campaign against Tehran-backed Hizbullah threatens to undermine negotiations. Hizbullah said it launched drones and rocket salvos toward Israel, while Israeli medics reported treating several people injured while rushing to shelters in central and southern Israel.
US and Iranian delegations are set to meet in Pakistan on Saturday, with shipping through Hormuz — which handled about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas before the war — a central sticking point.
US vice president JD Vance is expected to lead the US delegation in discussions scheduled for Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital - Bloomberg
Lebanon conflict emerges as major obstacle to peace talks
Israel’s continuing attacks on Lebanon are threatening to derail the fragile peace process.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency, close to the Revolutionary Guard, claimed talks set for Saturday would not happen unless Israel stopped its attacks in Lebanon.
Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, meanwhile, are expected to begin next week in Washington, according to a US official speaking to Reuters.
Israel’s insistence that the ceasefire in Iran does not include a pause in its fighting with Hizbullah, which joined the war in support of its backer Iran, has threatened to scupper the deal.
Ukraine says it shot down Iranian drones
Ukraine has been involved in shooting down Iranian drones, according to the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Writing on X, he said: “We sent our military experts to the Middle East, including specialists in interceptor drones and electronic warfare. We demonstrated to some countries how to work with interceptors.
“Did we destroy Iranian ‘shaheds?’ Yes, we did. Did we do it in just one country? No, in several. And in my view, this is a success.
“This was not about a training mission or exercises, but about support in building a modern air defence system that can actually work.
“In those countries that opened up their air defence systems to us, our experts were able to very quickly advise how to make those systems stronger.
“In some cases, we directly shared our experience in actual defence. In any case, all of this has had a very positive outcome, and it commands respect for Ukraine.
“We also shot down drones with jet engines. This is a very good signal, I think. We showed that this works. Now it is only a matter of time before we begin mass production of interceptors that will destroy drones with jet engines.”
Hizbullah fires rockets at Israel
Hizbullah says it has targeted a northern Israeli town in response to what it describes as Israel’s “violation” of the US-Iran ceasefire agreement.
Hizbullah says it fired rockets at Kiryat Shmona, near the Israel-Lebanon border, at 10am (6am Irish time) on Friday, and Misgav Am in the Upper Galilee region of northern Israel.
“This response will continue until the Israeli-American aggression against our country and our people ceases,” it says in the statement.
Israel has continued to target Hizbullah in Lebanon and has killed hundreds of people in the country.
It has claimed that that the US-Iran ceasefire does not extend to the Iranian-backed Hizbullah militia.
Oil prices creep up amidst ceasefire fears
Oil prices have continued their rollercoaster ride of recent weeks as mixed messages continue about the possibility of an end to the war in Iran.
A price of a barrel of Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil, increased by 0.6 per cent to $97.87 a barrel on Friday.
Oil prices have fallen considerably from their peak of $112.22 on March 23rd. It fell below $94.50 on the announcement of the ceasefire on Tuesday, but is creeping up again.
Brent crude prices are still well above their pre-war peak of $70 a barrel in February this year.
The fragility of the deal is testing investor nerves. US president Donald Trump has warned Iran that charging fees for passage through the strait of Hormuz, the key shipping channel through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply normally passes, is “not the agreement we have”.
He wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social: “There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!“
A few hours later he wrote: “Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonourable some would say, of allowing oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have!”
However, the US president has also told reporters that he was “very optimistic” a peace deal was within reach and that he had asked Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to pull back on strikes in Lebanon.
He told NBC News: “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 warns Iran not to charge tanker fees Strait of Hormuz
US president Donald Trump says Iran “better not be” charging tanker fees in the Strait of Hormuz after hearing “reports” that Tehran was doing so.
“They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Iran has said it has halted shipping traffic in the key waterway in retaliation for Israel’s strikes on Lebanon.
Vance to lead mediated talks with Iran
US vice-president JD Vance will depart on Friday to lead mediated talks with Iran after Donald Trump tasked him with finding a resolution to the conflict.
Vance, the member of Donald Trump’s inner circle who has seemed to be the most reluctant defender of the conflict, has long been sceptical of foreign military interventions and outspoken about the prospect of sending troops into open-ended war.
The vice-president’s visit to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad comes as a tenuous, temporary ceasefire appears to be on the precipice of collapsing.
Vance is joined by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who took part in three rounds of indirect talks with Iranian negotiators aimed at settling US concerns about Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes and its support for armed proxy groups in the Middle East before Trump and Israel launched the February 28th war against Iran.
The White House has provided scant detail about the format of the talks — whether they will be direct or indirect — and has not provided specific expectations for the meeting. - AP
Netanyahu orders direct negotiations with Lebanon
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered direct negotiations with Lebanon to begin as soon as possible, Mark Weiss reports in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu’s announcement came a day after an Israeli attack on Lebanon killed hundreds of people.
“The negotiations will focus on disarming Hizbullah and establishing peace relations between Israel and Lebanon. Israel appreciates the call today by the Lebanese prime minister [Nawaf Salam] to deploy forces in Beirut,” he said.
Netanyahu’s announcement came as Israel’s ongoing strikes against the powerful Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon threatened to derail the talks on a permanent ceasefire between US and Iran, due to get under way this weekend in Islamabad.
The Israeli prime minister has said there is “no ceasefire in Lebanon” and Israel would continue “to strike Hizbullah with full force” as the country’s military launched fresh strikes.
A US state department official has said Israel and Lebanon will hold talks in Washington next week.
Neither Israel nor Lebanon have publicly confirmed the US talks for next week.
Earlier, the Lebanese government had said a ceasefire must be agreed before any talks could begin. - Additional reporting Guardian
