Main points
- Donald Trump tells Fox News that US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will no longer be travelling to Pakistan for talks with Iran
- Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi leaves Islamabad without signs of a breakthrough in talks with Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif and other senior officials
- Four people have been killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s state news agency
Key reads
- Sally Rooney: Fragility of global fuel systems strengthens the case for rationing
- David McWilliams: Could the US go downhill for good following Trump’s war on Iran?
Trump cancels Witkoff and Kushner planned visit to Pakistan for talks
US President Donald Trump has said he has cancelled a planned trip by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan for talks to Iran.
Earlier on Saturday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview on Fox News Channel that the two envoys would take part in talks with Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
Araghchi left Islamabad on Saturday evening without talks having taken place, according to reports.
President Trump told Fox News that he cancelled his envoys’ trip to Pakistan at the last minute.
The decision adds uncertainty to efforts to end the conflict between the United States and Israel one side and Iran on the other.
“I told my people, when they were preparing for the flight – you’re not going to fly 18 hours, we hold all the cards. They can call us whenever they want, but you’re not flying 18 hours to sit and talk about nothing,” Trump told the Fox News.
While in Islamabad Iranian foreign minister Abbas met Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, army chief field marshal Asim Munir and other senior officials, two Pakistani officials said.
The Iranian minister wrote on Telegram that they spoke about regional developments, including Iran’s red lines for negotiations.
He did not offer details but said Tehran would continue engaging with Pakistan’s mediation efforts “until a result is achieved”.
The pause in hostilities brought about by the extension of the ceasefire is credited with preventing further death and destruction but the economic damage continues, with global shipments of oil, liquefied natural gas, fertiliser and other supplies disrupted by the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Also on Saturday, Iran resumed commercial flights from Tehran’s international airport for the first time since the war began with US and Israeli strikes two months ago.
Iranian officials have openly asked how they can trust the US after talks last year and early this year over Tehran’s nuclear programme ended with it being attacked by the US and Israel.
If US-Israeli war with Iran lasts a few months longer the world will enter a state of energy of scarcity – warning
French president Emmanuel Macron has reiterated that he is focused on efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Macron was speaking at a news conference in Athens alongside Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Saturday – one day after the head of large oil and gas company TotalEnergies, warned of possible global energy shortages.
Macron said panic caused by geopolitical uncertainty can in itself lead to shortages.
“Our goal is to achieve a full reopening in the coming days and weeks, in accordance with international law, guaranteeing freedom of navigation without tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. Then things can gradually return to normal,” Macron said.
TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne pressed on Friday for the reopening of the strait, through which about a fifth of the globe’s oil and gas supply normally flows.
Movement through the strait, which is also a key transport route for goods including fertilisers and pharmaceuticals, has been choked due to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, as Iran has seized container ships and the United States has mounted a blockade on Iranian ports.
“If it lasts two, three months more, we are entering in a world of scarcity of energy, which Asian countries have already suffered,” Pouyanne told the World Policy Conference in Chantilly, outside Paris. “You cannot have 20 per cent of the oil and gas of the planet being stranded and not accessible without major consequences.”
More than a dozen countries have said they are willing to join an international mission led by France and Britain to protect shipping in the strait when conditions permit, even as US president Donald Trump has said he does not need allies’ help.
“We’re all in the same boat, and it’s not a boat we chose, if I may say. We’re victims of geopolitics and we’re victims of this war that started several months ago,” Macron said on Saturday. – Reuters
Four killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon
Four people were killed on Saturday in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, Lebanon’s state news agency reported.
The previous day, six people were killed in Lebanon, the deadliest day during the recently extended ceasefire.
60-day deadline means congressional approval may be needed for war in Iran
Trump unlikely to ask congress for authorisation for war even though the law says he needs it
A 60-day deadline under which the US president needs congressional approval for ongoing military action, military action is set to be reached on May 1st.
However, it is unclear whether President Trump will seek approval for his war on Iran or put forward arguments to say it should not apply, CNN is reporting.
The post-Vietnam law is known as the War Powers Resolution. It’s aims are clear, but it’s not at all clear what will happen next.
The law lays out a timeline for undeclared wars:
- First, 48 hours. The president must notify Congress within 48 hours of introducing the armed forces “into hostilities” and explain the scope, justification and likely duration of the effort.
- In his notification to Congress about Iran, Trump, like other presidents, said he committed troops under a president’s inherent authority in the Constitution to “conduct United States foreign relations.”
- Second, 60 days. Congress must authorise the use of force within 60 days of receiving that notification or, the law says, the military action must be terminated by the president.
- Third, a possible extra 30 days. Trump can extend the 60-day clock for another 30 days if he argues that continued military action is needed to keep service members safe while withdrawing from the war. Trump has said he won’t be rushed into making a bad deal to end the war.
There’s some confusion in Congress over the exact date of the White House’s 60-day deadline, because lawyers in both parties argue there are multiple ways to interpret the federal statute.
Some believe the 60-day clock started from the date hostilities began (which would make the deadline April 29), while others cite the text of the law to argue it’s 60 calendar days from the date the White House officially notified Congress (which would put the deadline at May 1st).
But many Republican legislators believe that the ceasefire period does not count toward the 60-day deadline. Even some Democrats said the ceasefire could complicate the timeline.
Turkey ‘could consider’ removing mines from the Strait of Hormuz after a peace agreement
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the country could consider taking part in demining operations in the Strait of Hormuz following a possible peace agreement between Iran and the United States.
Fidan, speaking to reporters in London on Friday evening, said a technical team was expected to carry out mine-clearing work in the strait after any agreement, adding that Turkey viewed such efforts positively in principle as a humanitarian duty.
Here are some details from Fidan’s remarks:
* Fidan said any demining work would be carried out by a technical team from various countries, formed after a possible Iran-U. S. peace agreement
* Turkey would have “no problem” with participating in mine-clearing operations under those conditions
* Fidan cautioned that Turkey would reassess its position if any future technical Coalition of countries became a party to renewed conflict
* Fidan also said he believed issues related to Iran’s nuclear programme could be resolved at the next round of talks in Pakistan – Reuters
Iran said it hanged Israeli agent accused of vandalism and violence
Iran said it has hanged what it described as an agent working for Israel who was accused of vandalism and violence during nationwide protests in January, according to the country’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.
An Iranian man identified as Irfan Kayani, was accused of “creating terror” and hanged on Saturday after the Supreme Court confirmed the verdict, Tasnim reported.
Iran is the world’s second most prolific user of the death penalty after China, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group reported in September that Iranian authorities executed more than 1,000 people last year. The figure was the highest number of yearly executions in Iran that the organisation has recorded in at least 15 years. Iran has been accused of using the death penalty as a tool of political repression and using the chaos of war as cover to accelerate executions and suppress dissent. – Guardian
Sally Rooney: Fragility of global fuel systems strengthens the case for rationing
When goods are scarce, how are they distributed? That is: when lots of people want something, but there isn’t enough for everyone, who gets what they want and who doesn’t?
In a market system, prices decide. The people who are willing and able to pay the most get the goods. Price is, in other words, a way of rationing scarce resources.
Here in Ireland, protests against spiralling costs have already forced the Government to intervene. Using a combination of tax cuts and subsidies, the state has now committed over half-a-billion euro to moderate the price of fuel. But because price continues to act as the only rationing mechanism at the point of purchase, the wealthiest consumers can still afford to hoard and waste while the poorest struggle.
Read more from Sally Rooney here.
Is the attack on Iran a Suez moment for the United States, David McWilliams asks.
The Suez crisis in 1957 was the end of the road for Britain’s 200-year role as a global rule-maker. From then on, it became a rule-taker. The recent political nostalgia for a different England pedalled by Brexiteers, that elegiac world of warm beer, sandwiches and Spitfires, was the world before Suez. The crisis was a monumental cock-up involving Britain, France and Israel, and a botched attack on Egypt to ensure European control over the critical Suez Canal. The fiasco resulted in the Egyptian nationalist leader, Gamal Nasser, having full authority over the canal.
Following a dressing down by new kid on the block the US, Britain and France withdrew with their tails between their imperialist legs. After Suez, UK credibility gradually eroded, politically and financially – not overnight, but slowly and surely.
Could something similar happen to the US following Donald Trump’s war on Iran?
Iran war has drained US supplies of critical and costly weapons
The Iran war has significantly drained much of the US military’s global supply of munitions and forced the Pentagon to rush bombs, missiles and other hardware to the Middle East from commands in Asia and Europe, the New York Times reports.
Since the war began in late February, the United States has burned through around 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the US stockpile. The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year.
The Pentagon used more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles in the war, at more than $4 million a pop, and more than 1,000 “precision strike” and ground-based missiles, leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal US defence department estimates and congressional officials.
US vice-president JD Vance is not expected to attend the talks, as Iran’s parliamentary speaker Muhammad-Bagher Ghalibaf – viewed by the White House as his counterpart – will not be present. However, reports said Vance would be on “standby” to travel to Islamabad in case progress was made.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said Tehran had a “historic chance” to reach an agreement with Washington, as the US continued to apply pressure in the Strait of Hormuz. He said “the clock is not on Iran’s side”.
US delegation leave for Pakistan peace talks
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on X that Iranian officials did not plan to meet US representatives, even though US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner planned to travel to Islamabad. Iran’s concerns would be conveyed to Pakistan, the spokesperson said.
Speaking before the Iranian foreign ministry’s statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Witkoff and Kushner would leave for Pakistan on Saturday morning for talks to Araqchi. – Reuters
Iran’s foreign minister arrived in Islamabad on Friday for US peace talks
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi arrived in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Friday to discuss proposals for restarting peace talks to the US, offering some hope for an end to the eight-week war that has killed thousands and sowed turmoil in global markets, Reuters reports.
US president Donald Trump told Reuters on Friday that Iran plans to make an offer aimed at satisfying US demands, but said he did not yet know what the offer entailed.
When asked who the US was negotiating with, Trump said: “I don’t want to say that, but we’re dealing with the people that are in charge now.”
