Middle East crisis live: Trump warns of fresh strikes on Iran if talks fail as Vance heads to Pakistan

President Donald Trump has said that US warships are being reloaded with weaponry to strike Iran if talks in Pakistan fail to produce a deal, in an interview with the New York Post.
“We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made – even better than what we did previously and we blew them apart,” the Post quoted Trump as saying.
“And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very effectively.”
He added:

We’re going to find out in about 24 hours. We’re going to know soon.

In a brief and cryptic message on his Truth Social network earlier, Trump had spoken of the “WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL RESET!!!”

Melania Trump made a surprise appearance at the White House on Thursday to announce that she “never had a relationship” with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Her address has seemingly put Epstein back on the political agenda when focus had been firmly on the US and Israel’s war in Iran.
The intervention came at a difficult time for her husband, Donald Trump, as the fragile ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran seemed to be at risk of falling apart, and as US lawmakers are raising the alarm over the president’s mental stability.
In today’s edition of The Latest podcast, Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian US editor, Betsy Reed, Trump’s rhetoric in the Iran war, and whether there is anything to be hopeful about in US politics.

US inflation soared in March amid the US-Israel war with Iran, with prices up 0.9% compared with last month and 3.3% over the year, according to new data released on Friday.
The spike in the consumer price index (CPI), which measures the price of a basket of goods and services, is the largest in nearly two years and the first official measure of how the conflict has affected US consumer prices, particularly as Iran blocked the strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas would typically pass.
The index for energy rose 10.9% in March, led by a 21.2% increase in the index for gasoline which accounted for nearly three-quarters of the monthly all items increase. Airfares rose 2.7% in March and were 14.9% higher than a year earlier.
Core inflation – which strips out volatile food and energy prices – rose at a more modest 0.2% over the month and was 2.6% higher over the year.
The annualized inflation rate has not pushed past 3% since summer 2024, when inflation was finally cooling after reaching a generational high of 9.1% in June 2022.
The war on Iran has driven the American economy into deeper uncertainty, adding to a precariousness that first came with Donald Trump’s tariffs last year. Inflation reached a four-year low last April, when price increases dropped to 2.3%. It rose to 3% by September, before coming back down to 2.4% in January and February.
Oil prices dropped after Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran, which agreed to reopen the strait during the ceasefire period, but oil prices still remain high. Even after the agreement was announced, US crude oil was still priced 10% higher than before the conflict and nearly 30% higher since the start of the year.
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US vice-president JD Vance has warned Iran not to “play” the US as he headed overseas for negotiations aimed at ending their war. Vance, who has long been sceptical of foreign military interventions and outspoken about the prospect of sending troops into open-ended conflicts, set off Friday to lead mediated talks with Iran in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

President Donald Trump has said that US warships are being reloaded with weaponry to strike Iran if talks in Pakistan fail to produce a deal, in an interview with the New York Post. “We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made – even better than what we did previously and we blew them apart,” the Post quoted Trump as saying.

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on Friday that two previously agreed measures, a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets, must be implemented before negotiations begin. In a post on X on Friday, Qalibaf said the steps were part of commitments made between the parties and warned that talks should not start until they were fulfilled, amid mounting disputes over ceasefire terms and continued hostilities in Lebanon.

US negotiators intend to request the release of Americans detained in Iran as part of upcoming talks aimed at ending the war, according to media reports. The Washington Post cited people briefed on the plans in its report.

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, Reuters reported.

The Israeli military has claimed to have destroyed more than 200 Hezbollah rocket launchers since the start of the conflict. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement online that it destroyed more than 200 rocket launchers, including approximately 1,300 launch tubes, belonging to the Iran-backed militant group since 2 March.

Keir Starmer said he used a call with Donald Trump to set out the views of Gulf states, the Press Association reported. “I had a discussion with president Trump last night and set out to him the views of the region here, these Gulf states are the neighbours of Iran, and therefore, if the ceasefire is to hold – and we hope it will – it has to involve them,” the UK prime minister said in Qatar, where he was on the final leg of his Middle East tour.

Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s senior diplomatic envoy, said on X that his country will review regional and international ties in light of attacks by Iran to “determine who can be relied upon”. The UAE’s defence ministry said yesterday that its air defences have intercepted 537 ballistic missiles, 26 cruise missiles and 2,256 drones since the start of the war.

The UN children’s agency, Unicef, reported that nearly 600 children have been killed or injured in Lebanon since the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war on 2 March. More than 30 children were killed and nearly 150 injured by the wave of bombings carried out on Wednesday by Israeli troops, Unicef said.

Donald Trump said that Iran has “no cards” ahead of peace talks in Pakistan in a post on social media this afternoon.
Writing on Truth Social, he 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. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!

We’re going to find out in about 24 hours. We’re going to know soon.

In a brief and cryptic message on his Truth Social network earlier, Trump had spoken of the “WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL RESET!!!”

Iran-backed Hezbollah fired around 30 projectiles from Lebanon into Israel on Friday, the Israeli military said, reporting that some strikes caused damage.
Air-raid sirens were activated across northern Israel near the Lebanese border, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have continued to exchange fire despite a truce in the broader conflict involving Iran.
Israeli emergency services reported a strike in Safed, where a direct hit damaged several vehicles, AFP reported.
The emergency services reported additional impacts in the Galilee region, including in Baana and Deir al-Assad, where a building was hit.

European airports have said jet fuel shortages could hit the summer holiday season, if oil supplies do not start to flow through the strait of Hormuz within the next three weeks.
Airports Council International (ACI) Europe wrote to Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the EU transport commissioner, saying the bloc is three weeks away from shortages.
The warning will raise concerns of a risk of flight or holiday cancellations if the US and Israel’s war on Iran continues. Oil prices have soared since the start of March after Iran effectively closed the strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for exports from the Gulf, in retaliation.
Donald Trump this week announced a ceasefire, but Brent crude oil prices remained at about $96 per barrel on Friday amid concerns over whether it would hold. Before the war, oil traded at about $72.

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, Reuters reported.
An AFP photographer saw extensive damage at the site, where a fire was still raging.

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on Friday that two previously agreed measures, a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets, must be implemented before negotiations begin.
In a post on X on Friday, Qalibaf said the steps were part of commitments made between the parties and warned that talks should not start until they were fulfilled, amid mounting disputes over ceasefire terms and continued hostilities in Lebanon.

Pope Leo has issued a thinly-veiled criticism of the US-Israeli war on Iran, saying “military action will not create space for freedom”.
Writing on X, he also said that God “does not bless any conflict”.
He said:

God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.
Military action will not create space for freedom or times of #Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.

US negotiators intend to request the release of Americans detained in Iran as part of upcoming talks aimed at ending the war, according to media reports.
The Washington Post cited people briefed on the plans in its report.

Here are some of the latest images on the newswires:

Further to the announcement by the Israeli foreign affairs ministry of Spain’s exclusion from the Civil-Military Coordination Center (see previous post), the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has accused Madrid of “hostility” towards his country.
In a video message posted today, he said:

Israel will not remain silent in the face of those who attack us.
Spain has defamed our heroes, the soldiers of the IDF, the soldiers of the moral army in the world.
Therefore, I have instructed the removal of the Spanish representatives from the coordination center in Kiryat Gat, after Spain has repeatedly chosen to stand against Israel.
Whoever attacks the State of Israel instead of the terrorist regimes, whoever does this, will not be our partner in the future of the region.
I am not willing to tolerate this hypocrisy and this hostility. I do not intend to allow any country to wage a diplomatic war against us without paying an immediate price for it.

Israel’s foreign affairs ministry announced Spanish representatives will not be allowed access to the US-led centre responsible for monitoring the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip due to what it described as a “blatant anti-Israeli bias”.
In a statement on its website, the ministry said the decision was made to block Spain from participating in the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in light of “the anti-Israel obsession of [Spanish] Prime Minister [Pedro] Sánchez’s government and its serious harm to Israeli (and also American) interests – including during the war against Iran”.
It added that the US was informed in advance of the decision.
Sánchez has arguably been the most vocal western critic of Donald Trump’s war in Iran. While most European leaders have reacted with cautious optimism at news of the ceasefire between the US and Iran, Sánchez said his government “will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket”.
In a statement, the Israeli foreign affairs minister, Gideon Saar, said: “The Sánchez government’s anti-Israel bias is so egregious that it has lost all capability to serve as a constructive actor in implementing President Trump’s peace plan and in the CMCC operating under that plan.”

US vice-president JD Vance has warned Iran not to “play” the US as he headed overseas for negotiations aimed at ending their war.
Vance, who has long been sceptical of foreign military interventions and outspoken about the prospect of sending troops into open-ended conflicts, set off Friday to lead mediated talks with Iran in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
Boarding Air Force Two on his way to Pakistan, the vice president said:

We’re looking forward to the negotiation. I think it’s gonna be positive. We’ll of course see.

He cited Trump, adding: “If the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand.”
But he said: “If they’re gonna try and play us, then they’re gonna find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.”
Vance also said that Trump “gave us some pretty clear guidelines” on how talks should go, but he didn’t elaborate. The vice president did not take questions from reporters traveling with him.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem on Friday called on the Lebanese government to stop giving “free concessions” to Israel, with the two governments due to begin negotiations in Washington next week.
“We will not accept a return to the previous situation, and we call on officials to stop offering free concessions,” Qassem said in a written message broadcast on the party’s Al-Manar TV, in which he also denounced the “bloody criminality on Wednesday,” when Israeli strikes killed more than 300 people in Lebanon.