Pakistan hosts the first round of face-to-face talks between the US and Iran in 47 years in April; the talks end without a breakthrough, but also without a breakdown
US, Iran hold high-level talks in Switzerland on June 20 after signingpreliminary agreement to end the war; hold talks in Doha on July 1, with mediators citing “positive progress”
US launches strikes on Iran on July 8 in response to attacks on ships in Hormuz, Tehran retaliates as strait heats up again
US-Iran continue to exchange fire amid a deadlock in the six-month war
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that there is no military solution to his country’s conflict with the United States, with talks on ending the war apparently at an impasse, AFP reports.
“If our enemies again choose the path of military confrontation, our response will be stronger than before, and we will defend ourselves with even more force,” Araghchi said at a gathering of foreign ambassadors. “There is no military solution, nor any solution based on new sanctions.”
The Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until seven Iranian conditions set out in a June interim agreement with the US are met, Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has said, Reuters cites Nournews.
The statement comes a few days after Tehran received Washington’s reply to its diplomatic proposal.
“The Americans, who say something different in the media, have recently put forward proposals through a mediator. But they must understand that the period of dragging out the process and dictating one-sided demands is over,” Qalibaf was quoted as saying.
“The position of the Islamic Republic of Iran is completely clear and firm, and the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened until our seven conditions, based on the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, are met.”
The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen has dismissed Houthi claims of an attack on the Saudi capital as “misleading”, Al Jazeera reports.
Major-General Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the coalition, has told the Asharq Al-Awsat news outlet that the Houthis were “attempting to divert attention from the scale of the losses and the growing public anger against them”.
“What the Houthis are facing in Taiz, and the human losses suffered by the group’s members at the hands of the heroes of the Yemeni armed forces and the Popular Resistance on all fronts drive them to seek illusory victories,” he has added.
The US aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush has arrived off Thailand’s resort island of Phuket with about 4,800 personnel aboard for a rest-and-recreation break after months of supporting US operations in the Middle East, reports Reuters.
The Nimitz-class carrier had been operating in the Arabian Sea during the conflict with Iran, according to multiple media reports.
The carrier will anchor offshore, while crew members are expected to come ashore through Phuket Deep Sea Port and spend time on the popular southern resort island from October 4 to 9, local media reported.
It appears that escalation is on the cards where the Houthi-Saudi and US-Iran conflicts are concerned. As per reports, Riyadh is planning an offensive to help the Yemeni government — which it backs — retake the strategically important Red Sea coast area from the pro-Iran Houthis, who captured it during a lightning offensive last month.
Hostilities are continuing; there were reports on Saturday of both Riyadh and Sana’a being attacked.
Meanwhile, members of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement are due to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the Yemen situation.
Yemen’s government forces say they struck Houthi targets around the country, deepening the conflict ravaging one of the world’s poorest nations and the wider region, reports AFP.
The armed forces launched strikes against the Houthis in the capital Sanaa, the northwestern governorate of Saada — one of the group’s strongholds — and Taiz in the southwest, military spokesman Colonel Majid al-Nuzaili said.
The strikes came hours after the Houthis claimed an attack on an oil facility near the Saudi capital, where an AFP journalist saw flames and smoke, and accused the Gulf kingdom of striking Sanaa dozens of times.
Iraq’s Oil Tankers Company transported 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude aboard a very large crude carrier through the Strait of Hormuz, its director general has said in a statement, terming it the company’s first such operation in decades, Reuters reports.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim they attacked an Aramco facility in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, with ballistic missiles and drones, Reuters reports.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said they targeted the site with ballistic missiles and drones. Earlier in the day, an AFP journalist reported smoke and flames rising from a facility belonging to the oil giant south of Riyadh.
There has been no immediate confirmation from Saudi Arabia.
Iran’s rial has continued its decline, as the central bank announces an injection of up to $2 billion to support the currency while the economy faces US sanctions and a naval blockade, Reuters reports.
The US dollar has been sold at around 2.688 million rials, up from 2.632 million on Friday, according to free-market tracking website bon-bast.com, while alanchand.com reports 2.695 million rials per dollar.
State television says state banks have begun selling up to $2bn to support the currency, which has lost more than half of its value in the past year.
Mehdi Darabi, an aide to the central bank’s governor on foreign exchange affairs, blames the decline of the rial partly on what he calls false predictions by US officials of the collapse of the Iranian economy.
“It is suggested that the Iranian economy is about to crash … The enemy is using this to affect the exchange rate of our currency,” Darabi tells state TV, adding that the current fall of the rial was temporary.
Iran’s state news agency IRNA reports that flights between Iran and Iraq will resume on Sunday, citing comments by the head of Iran’s civil aviation organisation.
The health ministry in Yemen’s Houthi-held capital, Sanaa, claims 72 people have been killed and 125 wounded in Saudi attacks on the country since the escalation began, Al Jazeera reports citing the Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah news outlet.
The Houthi foreign ministry has issued a statement warning of a “reciprocal response” to strikes and a naval blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia, Iranian state news agency IRNA reports.
The ministry says Saudi Arabia’s “continued violations of Yemen’s sovereignty and airspace, along with its targeting of the country, necessitate a reciprocal response”, IRNA reports citing the Lebanese Al Mayadeen news outlet.
Additionally, the statement emphasises the need for “continuing resistance and retaliatory strikes aimed at lifting the illegal blockade on Yemen”.
Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB reports that an oil tanker, which sources told the channel was “in violation” and had switched off its tracking system, has exploded in the Strait of Hormuz, Al Jazeera reports.
The final races of the Formula One season in Qatar and Abu Dhabi will go ahead as planned despite tensions in the Middle East, AFP reports quoting the sport’s Chief Executive Officer Stefano Domenicali.
“Based on the information we have, everything is confirmed for [us to stay in] Qatar and Abu Dhabi,” Domenicali tells French broadcaster Canal Plus on the sidelines of the Bahrain Grand Prix, which has been relocated to the Sepang circuit in Malaysia this weekend.
Speaking to Sky Sport Italia, the boss of motorsport’s premier series “confirmed the schedule for the final two Grands Prix” of the year in Qatar on November 29 and Abu Dhabi on December 6.
The Bahrain and Saudi Arabia Grands Prix were scrapped earlier this season due to the start of the US-led war with Iran.
Yemeni government forces have taken control of the Samaa fort after heavy clashes with the Houthi rebels southeast of the city of Taiz, Al Jazeera reports citing the government-run Saba news agency.
A military source tells Saba that government forces, backed by local popular resistance fighters from the Samaa district, took the fort after “violent battles” with Houthi fighters, with dozens of Houthi fighters killed or wounded and others fleeing.
Iran’s Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics has emphasised that space and emerging technologies will become drivers of power in the future, with competition among countries extending beyond traditional domains, Irna reports.
In a statement marking World Space Week 2026, the ministry said this year’s theme, “Rocket Revolution”, highlights the importance of space in development, communications, and national security.
It stressed that independent and sustainable access to space requires the capability to design, build, and launch satellites, as well as develop indigenous satellite launch vehicles.
The ministry described satellite launch vehicles as products of advanced technologies and the accumulated expertise of the country’s specialists, and as part of strategic technology development.
Referring to modern warfare, the Ministry of Defence said space has become part of security calculations and described dependence on space infrastructure as a factor that can leave countries vulnerable and constrain their national capabilities.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has taken a jibe at the UAE, saying that countries which “have entrusted their stability to Washington and Tel Aviv have ultimately been left alone with confusion in their domestic and foreign policies”.
In a series of posts on X, Velayati said “geography does not change with declarations” and reaffirmed that the islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa “have been Iranian and will remain Iranian”.
“A country whose political lifespan doesn’t even reach half a century claims from the United Nations podium about islands that have been registered with the name of Iran in historical documents and maps of past centuries,” he wrote, referring to the UAE, which claims the islands.
“One week after the warm reception of Netanyahu, speaking of ‘Arabs’ rights’ and ‘Islamic solidarity’ is more a contradiction than a claim. Public opinion, from Cairo to Beirut, judges this duplicity,” the Iranian official added.
“Regional experience has shown that imported security has an expiration date.”
Media outlet Al-Masriah, which is linked to Yemen’s Houthi rebels, says that a missile attack has targeted the city of Saada in the country’s north, according to Al Jazeera.
The development comes after Yemeni government forces announced that they were targeting “legitimate vital military targets” in Sanaa.
Iranian military spokesperson Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia says that the country’s armed forces are monitoring the situation closely and are “fully prepared” to deal with any scenario, state news agency IRNA reports.
Noting that the military has been “continuously enhancing its capabilities”, Akraminia says the armed forces and “steadfastness of the Iranian nation shattered all the enemies’ calculations, as they had imagined they could dismantle the country’s defensive capabilities and achieve their objectives in just a few days”.
Yemen’s Houthis said Saudi forces launched 26 strikes on capital Sanaa on Saturday, the group’s media reported, as the country’s revived civil war escalated further, AFP reported.
Al-Masirah TV said “Saudi enemy aircraft” targeted the Houthi-held capital, without providing details on casualties.
Saudi forces hit Sanaa for the first time in years on Thursday, Houthi media reported.
An emergency alert blares from a loudspeaker, and Damon Dennard and other sailors on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington are scrambling.
Dennard, 23, is readying bombs for loading onto aircraft as his crewmates race to their positions. “It has been eventful,” says Dennard, an aviation ordnanceman airman apprentice.
Dennard was one of dozens of sailors Reuters spoke with in September on a rare visit to a US warship that is central to the Iran war. The visit began at a particularly tense moment, just three days after the US military blew up five Iranian oil tankers in retaliation for Iran targeting a US Navy warship.
The George Washington’s mission near the Strait of Hormuz which has no defined end-date came as a surprise to the crew, who were deployed from Japan at the end of August to relieve another carrier.
The aircraft carrier is effectively a floating city of around 5,000 personnel, each with their own mission, from Majesta Ochoa, who operates a cash register, to Lieutenant Commander Brody Samaha, a “shooter” who helps oversee the launch of aircraft from the carrier’s catapults.
But there is a sense of synchronisation as the sailors go about their jobs, crew say.
