Trump says US agreed to talk with Iran, but ceasefire 'over'

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Iran denied that it had requested negotiations with the United States after President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington and Tehran had agreed to continue talks despite a recent escalation of hostilities.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran had not sought negotiations with the US, but had accepted a visit by the Qatari mediator to Iran, according to Iranian state TV.

President Donald Trump on Friday said the United States had agreed to talks with Iran after Tehran asked to continue negotiations, while stressing that the June ceasefire between the two nations was over. 

The United States is demanding that Iran publicly state it will stop attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and that all lanes in the strait will be open to shipping with no tolls, senior US officials said on Friday.

The officials said conversations between the two countries had been productive in recent days. They made the comments to a small group of reporters in a conference call.

"What we're demanding is that the Iranians issue a public statement that acknowledges all channels of the Strait of Hormuz are open and they're not shooting at ships anymore. They're either going to give us that statement or we're not having a good outcome for them," one official said.

Iran has told Washington that recent attacks on shipping in the Strait were from "an errant part of their system," one senior official said.

There seems to be a power struggle unfolding in real time between hardliners in Iran and pragmatists, an official said.

Three ships were attacked this week, prompting US President Donald Trump to respond with US strikes on Iranian targets. He has declared that a June ceasefire the two sides signed is over.

An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon killed one person on Friday, Lebanese state media reported, the latest attack despite a truce in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

"A young man from the city of Nabatieh was martyred in a raid by an enemy drone that targeted him this afternoon, when he was riding a motorcycle," Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will travel to Oman on Saturday for talks on the Strait of Hormuz, state media said.

The visit "will be focused on the Strait of Hormuz and shipping safety" and is "a continuation of the consultations that we started with Oman over the past one or two months," Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei as saying.

The strait is a major source of contention between Washington and Tehran, which effectively closed the strategic waterway in response to the war launched by the United States and Israel in late February.

The conflict was subsequently halted by a ceasefire agreement on 8 April, but there have been sporadic outbursts of violence ever since, most sparked by disagreements over the strait.

Tehran insists it must control the waterway, a conduit for a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas, and has expressed a desire to charge fees for ships that transit it.

It did not have such powers before the war, and while the strait comprises Omani and Iranian territorial waters, under international law the two cannot generally block passage or charge tolls.

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani discussed regional developments and ongoing US-Iran talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, with both leaders stressing the need for diplomacy to reduce tensions and protect maritime security, Qatar's Amiri Diwan said in a statement on Friday.

During a phone call, the two leaders underscored their commitment to coordinating on regional security, safeguarding maritime routes and ensuring lasting peace in the region. 

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Middle East conflict negotiator Pakistan on Friday urged Iran's president to safeguard the "hard-earned peace" after Tehran and Washington exchanged strikes this week.

"We discussed the evolving regional situation and underscored the imperative of restraint, dialogue and diplomacy to safeguard the hard-earned peace gains of recent months," Sharif posted on X of his conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Sharif added that Pakistan remained ready to continue "as an honest and sincere mediator for lasting regional peace."

The United States on Friday issued new Iran-related sanctions following Iran's resumption of attacks on international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the Treasury Department said.

The sanctions target Ali Ansari, an Iranian banker and businessman based in Dubai who had previously been sanctioned by Britain for his role in financially supporting the activities of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, among other individuals and entities, Treasury said.

Treasury described Ansari as a "key financier" for Iran's new leader Mojtaba Khamenei, saying he had diverted publicly funded wealth into an extensive overseas portfolio of real estate and commercial holdings to enrich himself, government elites, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also targeted key Iranian exchange houses that it said moved billions of dollars annually on behalf of sanctioned Iranian banks, using layers of shell companies to obscure the government's illicit financial activity.

The fresh sanctions were announced on a day of relative calm after a week of renewed conflict, when three Qatari and Saudi commercial tankers came under Iranian fire, prompting the US to hit Iranian sites, and Iran to respond with strikes on U.S. military sites in Gulf states.

A fire broke out on Friday at the Oxin Palayesh mini-refinery in Iran's western Lorestan province, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

The fire began shortly after 5 p.m. local time and sent a column of thick smoke over part of Poldokhtar, Tasnim said.

Firefighters, rescue teams and heavy and light equipment were sent to the site, but the scale of the blaze and the presence of flammable materials made containment difficult and prevented crews from approaching the main seat of the fire in the initial hours, Tasnim added.

The semi-official Mehr news agency earlier cited Lorestan deputy governor as saying no deaths or injuries had been reported and that the cause of the fire was under investigation.

Preliminary reports indicated the fire had likely started in the raw materials section of the industrial unit and that possible negligence was being considered, though the cause could not be determined conclusively until the fire was extinguished, the deputy governor added.

Iran's top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Friday said the conflict with the United States would not end with Tehran's surrender, after hostilities between the decades-old foes resumed this week with tit-for-tat attacks.

"Ending the war is a priority for the countries of the world, but everyone must know that this confrontation will never end with Iran's surrender," said Ghalibaf, who also serves as Iran's parliament speaker, ISNA news agency reported.

"Whenever the Americans betray the understanding (agreement), we are fully prepared to defend ourselves; we will stand firmly against them and secure the rights of the Iranian people," he added, speaking in a meeting with the speaker of Indonesia's People's Consultative Assembly.

The US and Iran have exchanged fire on several occasions this week, with accusing Tehran of targeting commercial ships and carrying out strikes in response and, Iran attacking US assets in Middle Eastern countries with drones and missiles.

It is just over three weeks since Washington and Tehran signed an agreement aimed at turning a months-long ceasefire into a durable peace, but the trading of fire for a second day in a row on Thursday threatened a return to full-scale regional war.

Egyptian and Qatari foreign ministers on Friday called on the United States and Iran to resume negotiations, Cairo's foreign ministry said, as US President Donald Trump repeated that the ceasefire between the two countries was over.

During a phone call, Egypt's Badr Abdelatty and Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani "urged all parties to give priority to the language of diplomacy and dialogue and to return to the negotiating table", the ministry said in a statement.

They also called for "implementing the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the US and Iranian sides, as a prelude to reaching a final agreement between the two sides, in a manner that contributes to de-escalation and to enhancing regional security and stability", the statement added.

In a separate statement, Qatar's foreign ministry said Sheikh Mohammed stressed "the need for all parties to commit to dialogue and diplomacy" and to implement what had been agreed under the US-Iran memorandum of understanding, including "ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz" to preserve regional security and stability.

On his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump said Iran had asked the United States to continue talks.

"We have agreed to do so, but the United States has stated to them, in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER!" he added.

Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz has reduced for the second day in a row, maritime traffic monitor Kpler has showed.

Only 22 transits were recorded on Thursday, 9 July, compared to 30 the previous day.

Activity remains largely low risk as no attacks have been reported in the last three days.

A delegation from mediator Qatar arrived in Iran on Friday for talks, local media reported, as hostilities resumed between Washington and Tehran this week following attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

"The main purpose of the visit is reportedly to try to reinforce Qatar's role as a mediator following events on Tuesday," Tasnim news agency reported, after Doha accused Iran of an attack on an LNG carrier, with two other tankers also hit in the strait.

Pakistani security sources said on Friday that Iran is "working towards a diplomatic solution" towards its conflict with Iran, the German Press Agency (DPA) said, and that the Iranian side has asked Islamabad to convey "readiness" to negotiate with the US.

A US government official said that the US "remains committed to reaching a solution, and technical talks are ongoing".

Israel claimed on Friday that the detention of a Gaza hospital director Hussam Abu Safiya is "lawful", and rejected reports that he suffered a life-threatening condition, despite evidence and family testimonies. 

Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva claimed on X that Abu Safiya, who has been detained since December 2024 "is lawfully detained by Israel based on concrete intelligence", and went on to accuse him of being "a colonel in Hamas".

"At no stage of his detention has he exhibited any indication of a life-threatening condition."

The statement came after a United Nations investigative team and several UN rights experts this week raised the alarm about the case.

The paediatrician and director of Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital rose to prominence in 2024 by posting about the dire conditions in his besieged hospital in Beit Lahia during a major Israeli offensive.

On 27 December that year, Israeli forces began an assault on the facility, labelling the only functioning hospital in northern Gaza at the time a Hamas "terrorist centre", and arresting dozens of medical staff, including Abu Safiya.

Four independent UN rights experts said in a statement on Tuesday that "Dr. Abu Safiya's ongoing arbitrary detention without charges or trial is a reflection of Israel's systematic targeting of Palestinian health workers".

The UN's independent Commission of Inquiry (CoI) on the rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories issued a separate statement on Wednesday voicing "grave concern at credible reports that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya... has been subjected to continued and severe abuse" during his detention.