Middle East crisis live: Iran says Trump’s claim of ceasefire request ‘baseless’ | US-Israel war on Iran
The day so far
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Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, called Trump’s claim that it has asked for a ceasefire is “false and baseless”, according to a report on Iranian state television. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard separately issued a statement saying the strait of Hormuz “is firmly and decisively under the control” of its forces, AP reported.
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Donald Trump has said he is “absolutely” considering withdrawing the US from Nato, warning that the matter was “beyond reconsideration” after the refusal of US allies to join the US-Israeli war against Iran. The president’s threats, his most determined to date, have left the alliance facing its worst crisis in its 77-year history, a former US ambassador has warned.
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Trump said the US will be “out of Iran pretty quickly” but could return for “spot hits”. Ahead of his scheduled national address this evening, the US president said he would express his disgust with Nato over what he described as its lack of support for his war objectives against Iran.
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Trump will address the nation on the Iran war on Wednesday, his first prime-time speech since the conflict began. The White House has given no details on the address, but it comes hours after Trump claimed Iran had sought a pause in hostilities – even as he set conditions that underscored the uncertainty surrounding the war’s trajectory, AFP reported.
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The Israeli military claimed to have killed a Hezbollah commander who was responsible for the group’s military activity in southern Lebanon. In a statement on social media, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Yusuf Ismail Hashem was killed in a strike in Beirut yesterday. It described Hashem as a “senior commander with 40+ years of experience” and that he was “a central figure in Hezbollah”.
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Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has acknowledged the attack on an oil tanker in Qatari waters, alleging that it had ties to Israel. As reported earlier, the Qatari defence ministry said the Aqua 1 fuel oil tanker leased to the state-owned QatarEnergy was hit by an Iranian cruise missile.
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The new supreme leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, has issued a message of gratitude to Hezbollah’s secretary general, Naim Qassem. In a statement carried by Iranian media, he praised Hezbollah for its “perseverance, steadfastness and patience” against “the most ruthless enemies of the Islamic world”, as he vowed Iran will continue to support groups fighting US and Israeli forces across the Middle East.
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British counter drone crews in northern Iraq downed over 10 Iranian drones overnight, the UK Ministry of Defence said. Attacks have continued seemingly undimmed over the past month, with some or more aimed at western bases, previously for troops engaged in counter Islamic State operations before the US and Israel attacked Iran.
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Kuwaiti firefighters on Wednesday extinguished a fire that broke out earlier in the day in fuel tanks at Kuwait airport following an Iranian drone attack, the government said. There were no casualties, and only material damage was reported.
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The families of UK citizens held in the United Arab Emirates over allegations that they shared images of the conflict with Iran have voiced frustration at the British government’s failure to help. Several British citizens are among more than 100 foreign nationals who have been detained under draconian Emirate rules that outlaw publishing or sharing material that could “disturb public security”.
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Explosions were heard in the Syrian capital Damascus and its surrounding areas, state TV al Ekhbariyah reported on Wednesday. The network said that that the blasts were likely caused by Israeli air defences intercepting Iranian missiles.
Key events
Donald Trump has said he is considering pulling the US out of Nato, likening the alliance to a “paper tiger”.
It comes after weeks of denouncements from the US president against allies for not helping to reopen the strait of Hormuz.
Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley…
Julian Borger
Donald Trump has said he is “absolutely” considering withdrawing the US from Nato, warning that the matter was “beyond reconsideration” after the refusal of US allies to join the US-Israeli war against Iran.
The president’s threats, his most determined to date, have left the alliance facing its worst crisis in its 77-year history, a former US ambassador has warned.
Trump has long been vocally sceptical about the benefit of Nato membership to the US, but since North Atlantic allies have refused to take part in the month-long, faltering, US-Israeli assault on Iran, the president has stepped up his rhetoric.
He told Reuters news agency on Wednesday he was “absolutely without question” considering withdrawal, after telling the Telegraph the matter was “beyond reconsideration”, insisting he had never been “swayed by Nato”. He signalled that he would express his disgust for Nato in an address to the nation scheduled for Wednesday evening.
It could be politically and constitutionally difficult for Trump to bring about formal withdrawal from the 1949 Washington treaty, Nato’s founding document, but Ivo Daalder, US permanent representative at Nato headquarters from 2009 to 2013, argued the serious damage to the alliance had already been done.
“This is by far the worst crisis Nato has ever confronted. Military alliances are, at their core, based on trust: the confidence that if I am attacked, you will come help defend,” Daalder wrote in an online commentary. “It’s hard to see how any European country will now be able and willing to trust the United States to come to its defence.”
Matthew Weaver
The families of UK citizens held in the United Arab Emirates over allegations that they shared images of the conflict with Iran have voiced frustration at the British government’s failure to help.
Several British citizens are among more than 100 foreign nationals who have been detained under draconian Emirate rules that outlaw publishing or sharing material that could “disturb public security”.
UK government ministers have refused to condemn the arrests, amid claims they are too fearful of offending the Emirates because of their economic clout.
The campaign group Dubai Watch, which is supporting nine British detainees, said their identities could not be revealed for fear of reprisals. But it has shown the Guardian anonymised correspondence from their increasingly anxious families.
A mother whose daughter is being held wrote: “This experience is exhausting, mentally and emotionally.”
She described reading media reports about the continuing conflict in which Iran has retaliated against US and Israelis strikes by firing drones and missiles against its Gulf neighbours, including the UAE.
She said: “I have just read another article, and quite frankly I could do one purely on the inadequacies and sycophantic responses from this [UK] embassy.”
Iran says Trump’s claim of ceasefire request is ‘false and baseless’
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, called Trump’s claim that it has asked for a ceasefire is “false and baseless”, according to a report on Iranian state television.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard separately issued a statement saying the strait of Hormuz “is firmly and decisively under the control” of its forces, AP reported.
“This strait will not be opened to the enemies of this nation through the ridiculous spectacle by the president of the United States,” it added.
Kuwaiti firefighters on Wednesday extinguished a fire that broke out earlier in the day in fuel tanks at Kuwait airport following an Iranian drone attack, the government said.
There were no casualties, and only material damage was reported.
US president Donald Trump will address the nation on the Iran war on Wednesday, his first prime-time speech since the conflict began.
The White House has given no details on the address, but it comes hours after Trump claimed Iran had sought a pause in hostilities – even as he set conditions that underscored the uncertainty surrounding the war’s trajectory, AFP reported.
Iran’s president “has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”
There was no independent confirmation of Trump’s claim.
Trump is set to speak at 9pm ET, more than a month after the United States and Israel launched their assault on Iran – a delay that contrasts with the early addresses presidents typically deliver at the outset of major conflicts.
What should we infer from Trump’s claim Iran has asked for ceasefire?
Peter Beaumont
President Trump’s Truth Social post claiming that Iran’s new president had asked for a ceasefire is problematic in a number of key details.
While Iran might have a new Supreme Leader in Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father Ali who was assassinated in the opening salvoes of the war, it does not have a “new president” who remains exactly the same person as before the start of the war – Masoud Pezeshkian.
If, at a pinch one could argue that, Trump is talking sloppily about the president of a “new regime” that still remains sharply at odds with most expert analysis which suggests that far from being “less radicalized” the regime has taken a more hardline and unpredictable turn since Ali Khamenei’s killing as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has moved to further consolidate its power.
Even in the event that Pezeshkian is behind an undisclosed ceasefire initiative of some kind – which Iran has not commented on – it is not clear what the status that might means in terms of Tehran’s internal power dynamics where the role of Supreme Leader is viewed historically as being more powerful than the office of president.
In a phone call this week with Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, Pezeshkian suggested that Iran could end of the conflict but with the important proviso of guarantees against a repeat attack – which is one of Tehran’s key demands and which Trump may be misrepresenting.
“We possess the necessary will to end this conflict, provided that essential conditions are met, especially the guarantees required to prevent repetition of the aggression,” Pezeshkian’s office said in a statement.
When Iran has commented on contacts through the mediation of Pakistan it has been to suggest that Trump’s remarks on progress have been highly exaggerated, a familiar Trump trait both in his interventions in Middle East diplomacy and over the war in Ukraine where repeated claims of imminent breakthroughs have tended not to survive contact with reality.
Amid widespread reporting that Trump is looking for an exit strategy for a deeply unpopular war that he has already become bored with, what seems more likely is that he is trying to shape a narrative that would allow him to say the war has been won.
Trump repeats claims of Iran ‘regime change’
Reuters has published further remarks from Donald Trump in its phone interview with the US president.
When asked if he was thinking about pulling the US out of Nato, he said: “Oh, absolutely without question. Wouldn’t you do that if you were me?”
He added: “They haven’t been friends when we needed them. We’ve never asked them for much … it’s a one-way street.”
He also expressed his hope for a deal with the new leaders in Iran after airstrikes killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
He again claimed that there has been a “full regime change” in Iran, adding: “I’m dealing with a very good chance that we’ll make a deal because they don’t want to be blasted anymore.
“I didn’t need regime change, but we got it because of the casualties of war. We got it. So we have regime change and the big thing we have is they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon. Nor do they want one.”
As for the enriched uranium still possessed by Iran, Trump said: “That’s so far underground, I don’t care about that.
“We’ll always be watching it by satellite.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has acknowledged the attack on an oil tanker in Qatari waters, alleging that it had ties to Israel.
As reported earlier, the Qatari defence ministry said the Aqua 1 fuel oil tanker leased to the state-owned QatarEnergy was hit by an Iranian cruise missile. There were no reports of injuries and the 21 crew members escaped unharmed.
In a statement carried by Iranian state media, the IRGC said an oil tanker belonging to the “Zionist regime with the trade name ’Aqua 1’” in the the Persian Gulf “was precisely targeted”.
It was not immediately clear what links the oil tanker have to Israel.
In further news alerts, Reuters reported Trump as saying Iran will not have a nuclear weapon “nor do they want one”.
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, with leaders citing a religious decree (known as a fatwa) against weapons of mass destruction. The US and Israel have always disputed this claim.
Trump says US will be ‘out of Iran pretty quickly’ – Reuters
In an interview with Reuters news agency, Donald Trump said the US will be “out of Iran pretty quickly” but could return for “spot hits”.
Ahead of his scheduled national address this evening, the US president said he would express his disgust with Nato over what he described as its lack of support for his war objectives against Iran. He added that he was “absolutely” considering an attempt to withdraw the US from the alliance, according to Reuters.
He did not give a timeline of when the US could end the war, saying: “I can’t tell you exactly… we’re going to be out pretty quickly.”
He added: “They [Iran] won’t have a nuclear weapon because they are incapable of that now, and then I’ll leave, and I’ll take everybody with me, and if we have to we’ll come back to do spot hits.”
Dan Sabbagh
British counter drone crews in northern Iraq downed over 10 Iranian drones overnight, the UK Ministry of Defence said.
Attacks have continued seemingly undimmed over the past month, with some or more aimed at western bases, previously for troops engaged in counter Islamic State operations before the US and Israel attacked Iran.
It was not clear what Donald Trump meant by “Iran’s new regime president”, as there has been no recent change in that role. Masoud Pezeshkian remains the Iranian president, a role he has served since 2024.
Trump claims Iran’s president has asked US for a ceasefire
The US would only consider a ceasefire with Iran if the Hormuz strait opens, Donald Trump has declared on social media.
He said Iran had asked for a ceasefire, writing:
double quotation mark Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE! We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!! President DJT
