Iran War Live Updates: Uncertainty Surrounds U.S.-Iran Talks as Cease-Fire Nears End

Iran war: Cease-fire expires in 36 hours as Trump sends mixed signals on talks

Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

The 72-hour U.S.-Iran cease-fire ends at midnight Friday with no agreement in place and conflicting messages emerging from the White House on whether negotiations will continue.

Trump told reporters at the Oval Office that “we’ll see what happens” when the truce lapses, hours after his special envoy Steve Witkoff left Muscat without a follow-up meeting scheduled.

The pause, brokered by Oman, halted American air strikes and Iranian missile launches that killed 36 U.S. service members and at least 212 Iranians since April 12.

Pentagon officials said B-52 bombers remain airborne over the Gulf and the carrier USS Harry S. Truman stays within 200 miles of Bandar Abbas, positions they held before the freeze.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that any post-truce attack would meet “an immediate and broader response,” repeating Tehran’s demand for a full U.S. withdrawal from the region.

Kuwait’s state news agency reported that the emir, Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad, offered to host direct talks next week, but neither capital has replied.

The uncertainty sent Brent crude up 4.2 percent to $84.70 a barrel, its highest close since October, while Tehran’s thirty-year bonds traded at 45 cents, a record low.

Inside Iran, Friday prayers in 18 cities turned into rallies where clerics praised “the iron will of the nation” and collected donations for families of slain Revolutionary Guards.

Republican senators led by Tom Cotton urged Trump to “abandon the Muscat track and finish the job,” arguing that extending the cease-fire would project weakness.

Democrat Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, countered that “no deal risks a wider war that pulls in Israel and closes the strait.”

A White House read-out said Trump met Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting CIA director Joe Koteen on Thursday night, but gave no decision on force posture.

In Baghdad, caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Sudani told diplomats he fears Iraq could again become “the battlefield by accident” if rockets hit U.S. bases there.

The UN envoy for the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, told the Security Council that relief agencies have pre-positioned 90 days of food and medicine in case ports are attacked.

Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the security cabinet will convene Sunday to discuss Iron Dome reloads and possible civil defense drills.

Background

The two nations have fought a shadow war since Trump exited the 2015 nuclear accord and re-imposed sanctions that shrank Iran’s oil exports from 2.5 million barrels a day to under 400,000. Last month American intelligence tracked a surge of drone shipments to militias in Syria and Iraq, prompting the April 1 bombing of a Revolutionary Guard logistics hub near Deir ez-Zor that killed 17 Iranians.

Tehran answered five days later with a barrage of 110 ballistic missiles on Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar and Al-Dhafra in the UAE, the largest single-day strike against U.S. forces since the 1991 Gulf War. Trump then ordered round-the-clock sorties that crippled radar stations along the Persian Gulf coast and exploded a centrifuge workshop at Natanz, pushing the two capitals to Oman’s mediation table.

What’s Next

Muscat has given both sides a 48-hour cooling-off window after the truce expires, but without fresh talks the U.S. fleet is expected to resume overflights and Iran’s navy to redeploy speedboats near the Strait of Hormuz, tightening the choke-point through which 20 percent of the world’s traded oil passes.