War returns to Iran with Israel, US strikes

France has drafted a UN Security Council resolution on setting up an international mission to restore movement in the Strait of Hormuz and could submit it if conditions are right, the foreign ministry says according to Reuters, as Washington struggles to bring to a vote a text Russia and China may say is biased against Tehran.

A US-Bahraini resolution on the strait has been under discussion for more than two weeks, with a vote repeatedly delayed as China and Russia signal they could veto it.

The US-Bahraini draft resolution demands Iran halt attacks and mining in the strait. China and Russia vetoed a similar US-backed text in April, arguing it was biased against Tehran.

Washington has secured almost 140 countries to co-sponsor its text in the hope of avoiding a veto, two European diplomats said. France, another veto-wielding power, has so far refused to back the US text.

A third Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker is transiting the Strait of Hormuz and heading to China, ship-tracking data shows according to Reuters, as a Qatari negotiating team arrives in Tehran to try to help secure a deal to end the war with Iran.

As shipments through the waterway continue to be erratic, this third transit of a Qatari LNG tanker is taking place nearly two weeks after a first such cargo passed through the strait under a Pakistan-Iran arrangement.

The vessel, Al Sahla, with a capacity of 211,842 cubic metres, left Ras Laffan and is expected to arrive at China’s Tianjin LNG terminal on June 14, according to LSEG shipping data.

Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said that Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz “affects us all”, as foreign ministers gather for a summit in Sweden, according to Al Jazeera.

“It is important that countries are coming together around plans to ensure that the Strait can be open for transit,” Reuters reported Rutte telling a news conference.

“Iran’s direct assault on freedom of navigation impacts us all,” the Nato chief added.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has said that peace negotiations with the United States are not “close”, adding that it is difficult to say whether a deal could be reached within “weeks or months”, Al Jazeera reported.

State media quoted him as saying that the gaps between Tehran and Washington remain “deep and significant”.

“We cannot necessarily say that we have reached a point where an agreement is close,” he said. “The focus of the negotiations is on ending the war. Details related to the nuclear issue are not being discussed at this stage.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Japan’s Toshimitsu Motegi have held a phone conversation, Al Jazeera reports according to Araghchi’s official Telegram account.

A brief statement said the call was held “to discuss bilateral issues and the latest regional and international developments”.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said any demand for Iran to hand over its highly enriched uranium to the United States was a “non-starter”, reports Al Jazeera.

“We will not reach a conclusion if we try to delve into details related to highly enriched uranium in Iran,” he was quoted as saying by the state-run IRNA news agency.

Baghaei also said a Qatari delegation was currently holding talks with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, adding that Pakistan remained the main mediator in the negotiations.

Record-low US consumer confidence in May was even worse than initially reported, according to fresh data released by the University of Michigan, with Americans battered by the economic fallout of the Iran war, reports AFP.

According to final figures, the university’s consumer sentiment index came in at 44.8 points, down from 48.2 points in its preliminary estimate released on May 8.

The reading is the lowest level since data collection began in 1952, according to the survey’s website.

“The cost of living continues to be a first-order concern, with 57 percent of consumers spontaneously mentioning that high prices were eroding their personal finances, up from 50 percent last month,” said Joanne Hsu, director of the survey.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and discussed the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.

He also discussed “working toward greater regional stability”.

Wall Street’s main indexes rose ahead of a long weekend, with the blue-chip Dow hitting a record high for the first time since the Iran war began, as investors tracked progress in talks to end the nearly three-month-old conflict, reports Reuters.

The S&P 500 is on track for an eighth consecutive weekly gain, which would mark its best winning streak since December 2023.

Most megacap and growth stocks traded higher, with Apple up 2 per cent, hitting a market capitalisation of more than $4.5 trillion for the first time.

Semiconductor stocks, a key driver of recent Wall Street gains, were broadly up with the Philadelphia chip index rising 2.4pc. Qualcomm led the pack with a 12% jump.

PC makers Dell Technologies and HP Inc surged over 15pc each after China’s Lenovo Group reported a better-than-expected 27pc jump in quarterly revenue.

An Israeli air strike targeted the town of Ghandouriya in southern Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil district, reports Al Jazeera.

Shelling also hit the town of Yohmor al-Shaqif. Meanwhile, Hezbollah claimed additional attacks against invading Israeli forces.

The Royal International Air Tattoo, one of the world’s largest defence shows, has been cancelled due to military operations linked to the Iran war, it said on Friday, reports Reuters.

RIAT had been scheduled for July 17-19 at RAF Fairford, an active Royal Air Force base used by the US Air Force, in southwest England. The airshow attracts more than 150,000 visitors every year.

“This has not been an easy decision. It follows extensive discussions with the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force regarding uncertainty over access to RAF Fairford, given the ongoing situation in the Middle East,” RIAT said on its website.

The use of British military bases by US forces for the Iran war became a point of tension between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Donald Trump.

NATO’s mission to Iraq, which was entirely evacuated to a base in Italy due to the Middle East war, could return to Baghdad in the coming months, its former commander told AFP.

“The general staff is working on various options” to allow the mission to return to Iraq, said French General Christophe Hintzy, who this week handed over command of the mission to Spanish General Ramon Armada.

“Where, when, how? We have no idea. But the determination is in our bones,” he added after the handover ceremony on Tuesday in the presence of his successor, specifying that “several scenarios” were under consideration for this return, which should take place “step by step”.

“But we won’t be going back in the same configuration. It will be a much smaller setup,” he added, saying he could not give any figures.

The NATO mission in Iraq, launched in 2018 at the request of the Iraqi government, is a non-combat mission focused on advising and strengthening Iraq’s military and security capabilities.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander of the Mohammad Rasul Allah Corps said the country’s armed forces were “more prepared than ever before”, reports Tasnim.

He warned that if “the enemy makes a mistake”, Iran’s armed forces would respond “more forcefully and decisively than before”.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi spoke on call with his Saudi counterpart, Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud, said the Saudi Ministry of Interior in a post on X.

Iran’s representative to China has praised Beijing for being the only power to present a peace initiative during the war, “with the support of Pakistan”.

The European Union has amended its sanctions framework to target those it says have facilitated Iran in “threatening the freedom of navigation in the Middle East”, Al Jazeera reports.

The restrictions were originally established to address Tehran’s support for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“The EU will now be able to introduce further restrictive measures in response to Iran’s actions undermining the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” the European Council said, including travel restrictions and asset freezes on individuals.

Israeli air defences have intercepted two “suspicious aerial targets” launched from Lebanon that triggered warning alarms in northern Israel, Al Jazeera reports.

Israel’s military wrote on Telegram that the incoming projectiles were identified in the border area with Lebanon.

The incident is under investigation, it added.

As part of the US blockade against Iran, American forces have redirected 97 commercial vessels and disabled four since the start of the blockade, US Central Command said in a post on X.

Speaking further, Marco Rubio also commented about CDF Asim Munir’s visit to Tehran, which he departed on just shortly before.

“And it’s my understanding he was supposed to go yesterday, but it could be as early as today that Field Marshal Munir could be travelling there very, very soon,” Rubio was quoted as saying by Fox News.

“And we’re in constant communication with him [and] the highest levels of our government are constantly talking to him.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has praised Pakistan for doing an “admirable job” trying to mediate a peace deal between Washington and Tehran.

“The primary interlocutor on this has been Pakistan and continues to be and they’ve done a, you know, I think an admirable job. And that’s what we continue to work through,” Fox News quoted Rubio as saying.

“Obviously, other countries, you know, have interests because especially Gulf countries that are, you know, in the middle of all this, may have their own situation going on. We talk to all of them. But I would just say that the primary country we’ve been working with on all of this is Pakistan, and that remains the case,” he told reporters in Sweden.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said there has “been some progress” in the US-Iran negotiations, adding that there was need for “more work to be done”.

He reiterated that Trump’s priorities were that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, the matter of highly enriched uranium and the issue of future enrichment.

“We’d all love to see an agreement with Iran and wish the straits are open and they abandon their nuclear ambitions and so forth,” he said.

He asserted that that is what the US “would continue to work on”, stressing the need for a “Plan B” if Iran refused to open the Strait of Hormuz.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said he raised the point of reopening the Strait of Hormuz in a Nato-affiliated meeting today in Sweden.

“We have to have a Plan B for it if someone is shooting that how do you reopen the straits. So I made that point today. I don’t know if that’ll be a Nato mission necessarily, but it will certainly be Nato countries that can contribute to it,” he said while speaking to the media.

Rubio said the US could act if Iran refused to open the Strait of Hormuz, but “there are countries that have expressed an interest in potentially being a part of something like that”.

“We don’t need their help but they’re willing to do it,” he asserted.

However, Rubio added, “We prefer to get an agreement with them.”

A Qatari negotiating team has arrived in Tehran in coordination with the United States to help secure a deal to end the war with Iran and resolve outstanding issues, a source with knowledge of the matter tells Reuters.

Doha, which has worked as a mediator in the Gaza war and other areas of international tensions, had till now distanced itself from playing a mediation role in the Iran war after it came under attack from Iranian missiles and drones during the latest conflict.