• US President Donald Trump stated that Iran ought to “put up the white flag of surrender” after the Memorandum of Understanding deadline passed on Monday. Trump also warned he would target Oman if the country hindered actions to re-open the Strait of Hormuz.
• Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said that the 60-day timeframe tied to the June 17 memorandum between Tehran and Washington lost all meaning after the US broke the pact shortly after signing it.
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged US President Donald Trump during a phone call to keep diplomatic discussions with Iran active to make use of the current opportunity, stating that Turkiye stood prepared to assist with the process.
• Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said that the 60-day timeframe tied to the June 17 memorandum between Tehran and Washington lost all meaning after the US broke the pact shortly after signing it.
• US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that the US Navy turned away 64 commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz since mid-July.
• US President Donald Trump’s approval rating dropped to 33 percent, the lowest point of his presidency, as most Americans expressed concern over a prolonged conflict with Iran, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Trump says Iran will not make the deal he believes is necessary

US President Donald Trump said Iran would not make the kind of deal he believes is necessary to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Trump added that Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon” and argued that rebuilding its nuclear capabilities would take a long time following previous US strikes.

US options for escalation against Iran ‘limited’

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, says Washington has limited room left to escalate its blockade of Iranian ports without facing significant risk to US forces.

Clark said that no war in history had ever been won purely through air power.

He said the US’s only remaining military option would be to “open the [Strait of Hormuz] and use force to basically protect shipping going through it,” which would require naval and air forces to actively defend commercial traffic—a step Washington has so far avoided.

“They haven’t really used ships to defend shipping going through the Strait of Hormuz,” Clark said, warning that this risks a repeat of the 1980s Tanker War and ships being attacked.

“I think another step beyond that would be ground forces, but I think before ground forces, the US might try to do some, at least limited, escorting of ships in an attempt to show the Iranians that they don’t really have control over the Strait of Hormuz,” he added.

Clark predicted that the standoff would ultimately resolve with “the Iranians and the Yemenis controlling the strait with some kind of fee arrangement”, leaving Washington needing “some kind of fig leaf that allows them to at least argue that they’ve resolved it in a way that’s not damaging to US interests.”

US senator blasts Trump’s diplomacy with Iran over nuclear program

US Senator Chris Murphy has slammed the Trump administration’s approach to the issue of Iran’s nuclear program.

“It’s crystal clear that there is no current path to get Iran to give up its nuclear program,” Murphy wrote on X.

“They are toying with Trump and his diplomatic ingenus,” he said.

“They know they can get complete sanctions relief and all their frozen money without a single nuclear concession.”

Oil prices rise on Middle East supply concerns

Oil prices are rising on Tuesday as heightened worries over energy supply mount following diminished prospects for a Middle East ceasefire extension.

Brent crude futures gained 27 cents, or 0.3 percent, to reach $91.14 a barrel as of 00:03 GMT, after climbing to their highest point since late July during the previous session.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude went up 42 cents to trade at $85.04 a barrel after surging past 1 percent earlier in the session to hit $85.37.

The gains came as a deal to end the US war on Iran appeared increasingly out of reach. Tensions escalated after Tehran announced it would adopt a more offensive stance, while Washington ruled out extending a ceasefire agreement.

Trump’s US ‘territory’ plan for Hormuz is ‘maximalist’ demand

Trump has doubled down on his aspiration to make the Strait of Hormuz a “territory of the United States”, saying: “We control it. We control it with the blockade.”

Bryan Clark, senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, said Trump’s demand that Iran “raise the flag of surrender” is a “maximalist demand”, and that both sides are “simply making assertions and then hoping that the other side backs down”.

Clark said the memorandum of understanding is now “a dead letter” and that diplomacy is effectively at a standstill, though US interlocutors are in touch with various Iranian factions, including the IRGC, which is “somewhat ascendant”.

US-Iran deadlock keeps Strait of Hormuz traffic muted

Shipping data shows traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained in single digits on Monday, despite a slight uptick from over the weekend, as peace talks between the US and Iran hit an impasse, Reuters reports.

Citing preliminary data from ship-tracking company Kpler, Reuters said six commodity vessels transited the waterway on Monday, three entering the Gulf and three exiting, compared with a 10-day average of about 11 ships. Traffic had dropped to three vessels on Saturday and just two on Sunday.

No supertankers or liquefied natural gas carriers were recorded passing through the narrow passage, according to the data.

Some vessels may be navigating the waterway with their transponders turned off and are not reflected in the tally, Kpler said.

Vessel struck by projectile while transiting Strait of Hormuz

A vessel in the Strait of Hormuz has reported being struck by a projectile, the UK’s Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO) says.

“The Company Security Officer has reported that the vessel was struck by an unknown projectile while conducting an outbound transit of the Strait of Hormuz,” it said.

“The impact caused damage to the engine room and resulted in a crew casualty,” it added, adding that the remaining crew is being assisted by the Omani coastguard.

UKMTO said that no environmental impact has been reported and authorities are investigating, advising vessels in the area to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity.

Iran inflation hits 66% as cost-of-living crisis deepens

Iran’s annual inflation rate has stood at 66 percent, the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) has reported, citing official data from the Statistical Centre of Iran, as the economy has reeled under the combined weight of international sanctions and the costs of regional conflict.

The point-to-point inflation rate, which measures price changes compared to the same month a year earlier, reached 87.9 percent in July, ILNA reported. Food and beverage prices surged by 128.1 percent year-on-year, with at least eight staple items more than doubling in cost over the past 12 months. Monthly inflation for July was recorded at 3.1 percent.

The figures underscored the deepening cost-of-living crisis gripping the Islamic Republic, where the rial plunged to record lows against the dollar on unofficial markets. The minimum living cost for a working-class family stood at 90 million tomans ($1,385) per month, according to the report, while the monthly salary of a minimum-wage worker was approximately 25 million tomans ($385)—covering just over a quarter of basic expenses.

Due to the rising cost of living, many workers were only able to afford their living expenses for around eight days in each month, according to Faramarz Toufighi, a labor activist. “For more than 20 days of every month, workers are effectively left with nothing,” Toufighi said, according to the ILNA report.

• Extreme economic coercion violates the principle of non-intervention in a nation's internal affairs.

If Trump's economic coercion leads to living situation amounting to food crisis if not starvation, the following:

• Under International Humanitarian Law, deliberately starving civilians or destroying objects needed for survival is illegal.

Gold falls as US Treasury yields and oil prices rise

Gold prices have fallen on Tuesday as higher US Treasury yields and rising oil prices weigh on the precious metal, while investors await minutes from the US Federal Reserve’s July meeting for clues on the interest rate outlook, Reuters reports.

Spot gold dropped 0.5 percent to $4,391.14 per ounce, while US gold futures for December delivery slipped 0.6 percent to $4,446.70.

Benchmark 10-year US Treasury yields extended gains, increasing the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion. Oil prices also edged higher after Iran announced a shift to a “fully offensive” military posture following stalled talks on a permanent peace agreement with the US.

Financial markets are currently pricing in a 65-percent chance that the Fed will leave interest rates unchanged at its September meeting. Minutes from the Fed’s latest policy meeting are set for release on Wednesday.

China’s fuel exports rebound towards pre-war levels

China’s refined fuel exports rose in July from the previous month as Beijing eased restrictions imposed after the Iran war disrupted oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reports, citing customs data.

Exports of refined petroleum products, including diesel, petrol, jet fuel and marine fuel, reached 4.65 million tons in July, up 6.7 percent from June but still 12.9 percent lower than a year earlier.

China, a major fuel supplier to Asia, imposed strict export controls in March to protect its domestic market from an oil price shock after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Beijing eased the restrictions in July and again in August, approving exports above pre-war levels.

Diesel exports jumped 88 percent from June to 810,000 tons, returning close to levels recorded a year earlier. Petrol exports also increased sharply from June but remained 55.3 percent lower year-on-year.

Iran’s FM accuses Israel of sabotaging ceasefire deal with US

Abbas Araghchi has accused Israel of actively sabotaging diplomacy, describing the country as the primary obstacle to a lasting ceasefire deal with the US, IRNA news agency reports.

“The Zionist regime was and remains the biggest opponent and obstacle to the implementation of the memorandum of understanding. They made every effort to prevent such an agreement from being reached, every effort to make this agreement fail, and every effort to prevent it from being implemented,” he said.

Araghchi added that Trump’s demand for an “unconditional surrender” from Iran failed to materialise, as Tehran ultimately accepted a ceasefire and conducted negotiations with the US on its own terms.

According to the report, Araghchi said those who “sought an unconditional surrender, within a short time of the war’s commencement, were begging for negotiations”.

“It was us who said we would not accept a ceasefire and continued the war until we reached a point where they accepted a ceasefire and negotiations on Iran’s terms,” he said.

Can China’s new Arctic Sea route to Europe replace Middle East chokepoints?

China has announced a new shipping route through the Arctic Ocean, which could ease the way for global trade amid the Middle East crisis that has paralyzed critical waterways, including the Bab al-Mandeb Strait on the edge of the Red Sea.

Shipping companies have become increasingly interested in alternative trade routes through the Arctic in recent years as conflicts, such as the US war on Iran, restrict vital routes like the Red Sea and the Gulf.

One answer may be China’s new “Ice Silk Road”, which begins at Ningbo on China’s east coast, cuts through the Arctic Circle by running along Russia’s Northern Sea Route and then heads south in the North Sea, terminating at Felixstowe in eastern England.

In recent weeks, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the key transit point to the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, has become a no-go route for many ships as the Iran-backed Houthis target shipping linked to Saudi Arabia. That has disrupted traffic heading to and from the Suez Canal, the vital waterway connecting West Asia to Europe.

So could China’s new shipping route be a sustainable alternative, and what would it mean for the balance of power in international trade?

A simple answer? Yes, it can.

We only have to look at climate change. Sea ice cover is also declining in the Northern Polar region.

The first Chinese container vessel sailing via the Northern Polar waters to Europe needed 20 days, while such vessel usually need 40 days via the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Red Sea, Suez Canal, Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, North Sea to arrive in Rotterdam.

Ghalibaf says Hormuz to remain closed until US meets MoU conditions

The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the United States meets the conditions of the interim deal with Iran, including lifting the naval blockade and sanctions as well as the release of Iran’s frozen assets, says Iran’s parliament speaker and top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

“Let me state clearly: Until the commitments made by the United States in the memorandum of understanding, including the lifting of the blockade, the release of frozen assets, the lifting of oil sanctions, the end of threats and military operations on all fronts, and other conditions to which America agreed in the memorandum, are implemented, the strait will not be opened,” Ghalibaf said.

Iran war risks spreading instability across region

Alexandru Hudisteanu, a defence analyst and retired Romanian navy officer, says the conflict between Iran and the United States is becoming increasingly regionalized.

“While the war itself remains localized, the whole area is now basically in a state of conflict,” he said.

“We have the Houthis expanding the theatre all the way to the Red Sea, with threats against Saudi shipping. We have also seen attacks in the Caspian Sea just a few weeks ago, which kind of connects the broader region here to the war in the Russia-Ukraine theatre,” he said.

Hudisteanu said that the instability created by the US-Israel war on Iran in February could spread and flare up in other regions, creating “a state of ambiguity and instability”.

He added that it’s not wrong to say that this situation can be described as the new security reality.

“The military options that the US has used until now haven’t been able to crack open this, at least not the Strait of Hormuz situation,” he added, saying Washington is now taking a “strategic pause” to reassess its options.

Hudisteanu said the US blockade on Iranian ports has been its most consequential move since the active phase of strikes.

“The problem is that the same tool used by the US to blockade Iran’s economy is being used by Iran against the world.”

Qatar says waiting on Iran-Oman Hormuz deal before returning to broader US, Iran talks

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari says during a news conference that parties mediating between Iran and the US will return to efforts to end the US-Israel war on Iran, and to get the two sides talking again, after Iran and Oman announce a bilateral agreement on transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

Qatar says waiting on Iranian response on pilots issue

Qatar’s foreign ministry says that an invitation for an Iranian delegation to visit on the issue of the downed Iranian pilots is still open, but that Iran has yet to respond.

Last week, Iran accused Qatar of holding prisoner three military pilots whose planes crashed in the early days of the war. Qatar has categorically denied these claims.

China’s state shippers deploy oil tankers outside Gulf

Two Chinese shipping giants have stopped sending oil tankers through two Middle East chokepoints and are instead collecting oil cargoes outside the Gulf, Reuters reports, citing three industry executives, tanker trackers and a ship broker.

State-controlled COSCO Shipping Energy Transportation and China Merchants Energy Shipping (CMES) have kept their tankers out of the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb since late July, according to tanker tracker Vortexa and a ship broker, with security concerns curbing oil shipments to the world’s largest importer.

CMES told investors in late July that its vessels would not enter the Strait of Hormuz for the time being. It added that other shippers have avoided Bab al-Mandeb, without mentioning its own policy for the narrow passage at the southern end of the Red Sea, a public filing showed.

The two shippers, which together control more than 100 very large crude carriers capable of carrying two million barrels of oil apiece, handled roughly half of China’s crude imports from the Middle East before the US-Israel war on Iran began in late February, according to shipping sources.

Trump posts ‘map’ showing US owning Strait of Hormuz

The US president has posted an image on his Truth Social platform showing a map of the Strait of Hormuz captioned “New US Territory”.

This appears to be a repetition of his threat last week to declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory after Iran’s “surrender”.

Gharibabadi on Trump’s Truth Social post: We will correct his ‘delusion’ on Strait of Hormuz

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, has responded to US President Donald Trump’s publication of an image of the Strait of Hormuz captioned “New US Territory”, saying Trump’s “delusion” over the waterway would soon be corrected.

“Soon, Trump’s delusion regarding the Strait of Hormuz will either be corrected, or we will correct the delusions of this delusional man,” Gharibabadi wrote.

Trump posted the image on Truth Social, showing a map of the Strait of Hormuz, parts of Iran, the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

IRGC deputy commander: ‘Enemy is in a state of helplessness’

Major General Mostafa Izadi, deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), says the Strait of Hormuz is under the control of Iranian forces.

“The enemy does not know what to do and is in a state of helplessness,” Izadi said.

‘All roads lead to uncertainty’ on future of Iran talks, Strait of Hormuz

All roads lead to uncertainty as of now because of all that we’ve been seeing in the last 24 to 48 hours.

The hardening of stances from the Iranians, the rhetoric coming from the US president, and then everything else that is happening on the ground. Those attacks in Iraqi territory, which were later denied by Iran, and the Iranian Foreign Ministry called them a false flag.

The flurry of diplomatic activity just last night, where the Kuwaiti foreign minister and the Jordanian foreign minister and the Bahraini and the Qatari, as well as the Saudis, were all in coordination talking to each other because of the expiration of this memorandum of understanding.

Now, all hell has not broken loose, but the problem is that there are two tracks that are happening simultaneously: The Iran-America dialogue, which is taking place, and according to the US president, he has some back channels with the IRGC, and then there is the negotiation that is happening between Iran and Oman.

According to Omani sources, they’re very close to a deal, but it appears that those minutiae of that detail on what this route is going to look like, who is going to take the toll, how much is that going to be, who is going to be in charge, and how does Iran relinquish some control where the others can also exercise some sort of veto on this international waterway, are all being considered.

So, it appears that we’re in this holding pattern of watching where the Iran and US dialogue goes next. Hopes and expectations are that this will not spiral out of control once again.

Saudi Arabia resumes loading oil inside Strait of Hormuz: Report

Saudi Aramco resumed loading oil from within the Strait of Hormuz last week, with more tankers now waiting to load, Reuters reported, citing shipping data and trade sources.

On Monday, the Saudi oil giant offered Asian refiners Arab Medium and Arab Heavy crude cargoes for loading through ship-to-ship transfers off Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.

Aramco had suspended sales for weeks after its tanker fleet was attacked in the strait last month.

Analysts say the return of Saudi exports could ease shortages of heavier crude. These grades yield more residual fuel, which can be used by ships or further refined into products such as gasoline and diesel.

Reuters said three very large crude carriers – Malaysia Prosperity, Algeria Prosperity and Singapore Prosperity – each loaded 2 million barrels of crude at the Juaymah and Ras Tanura terminals between August 12 and 16.

Saudi Aramco declined to comment. Sinokor, the owner of the tankers, did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

Iranian foreign minister: US now ‘begging’ for talks on our terms

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says the US objective in the war was to force Iran to surrender, but “we will not surrender”.

“America is now begging to negotiate with us according to our conditions,” he said.

He said the memorandum of understanding signed with the US contained “13 provisions in our favour and one in theirs”, accusing Israel of doing everything it could to sabotage and prevent its implementation.

“We won the war, and we also won in diplomacy, and we forced the enemy to accept our conditions,” he said, adding that Iran’s military and battlefield capabilities were what gave its diplomacy strength in the negotiations.

Pezeshkian praises officials for ‘resilience and service’ during war

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has praised officials for their efforts during what he described as the “imposed war in Ramadan”, saying they created “a golden chapter of resilience and service to the people”.

In a message to Ayatollah Javad Shahrestani, the representative of Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Pezeshkian said Iranian officials had acted “with faith in God and a sense of responsibility” during a difficult period.

“These valuable efforts will always remain in the historical memory of the dear people of this land,” he said, according to the Mehr news agency.

Trump threatened to bomb Oman again

The US president has threatened to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of a peace deal with Iran.

Oman is currently negotiating with Iran over the reopening of the critical Strait of Hormuz, while Iran has repeatedly stated that it will not speak directly to the US.

On Monday, as Iranian officials said they were close to announcing an agreement with Oman, a 60-day MoU between Washington and Tehran – which had provided for a period of peace talks but largely fell apart early on – expired with little hope for renewal.

This is not the first time Trump has threatened Oman, a US ally which has never entered into any direct conflict with the US. Oman, through whose territorial waters the contested Strait of Hormuz also flows, has positioned itself as a neutral party in the US-Israel war on Iran. Despite that, it has suffered a number of strikes by Iran, which has targeted US military assets and infrastructure around the region in retaliation for US-Israeli attacks.

Now, Trump is threatening to strike it as well.

Trump, UAE’s President Sheikh Mohammed discuss Middle East developments in phone call: WAM

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and US President Donald Trump held a telephone call on Tuesday, according to the Emirati state news agency WAM.

The two leaders discussed cooperation between the UAE and the US and ways to strengthen ties “to serve their mutual interests”, WAM said.

They also reviewed developments in the Middle East and exchanged views on the current situation, according to the agency, which did not provide further detail on the topics discussed.

Their call came a day after Trump threatened to bomb Oman, the UAE’s neighbor, over Muscat’s attempts to stitch together a pact with Tehran to manage the Strait of Hormuz.

UAE’s air defence systems detect missile threat: Ministry

The UAE’s Defence ⁠Ministry says its ⁠air defence systems have ‌detected a missile threat, according ⁠to a post ⁠on ⁠X.

The country’s Interior Ministry also issued a phone alert for “potential missile threats”, the first such warning in months.

“Due to the current situation, potential missile threats, immediately seek a safe place in the closest secure building,” the Interior Ministry said in the alert, the first since a false alarm in June. Before that, the last missile warning came in May.

Iran targeted UAE with two ballistic missiles: Ministry

The country’s Defence Ministry is saying that air defenses “detected two ballistic missiles launched from Iran toward the country, with the first falling outside the country’s territorial waters, while the second fell within the territorial waters”.

“The Ministry of Defense confirms that it is on high alert and fully prepared to deal with any threats, and to firmly confront anything aimed at undermining the security of the state, thereby ensuring the preservation of its sovereignty, security, and stability, and protecting its interests and national capabilities,” the statement published on X said.

Trump says US having no talks with Iran

US President Donald Trump has said there are ⁠no conversations taking place, or scheduled, with Iran.

In a Truth Social post, Trump said the naval blockade of the ⁠Strait of Hormuz remains in “full force ⁠and effect.”

He added that the Strait remains “open and operating” and that mines in the waterway “have been removed or detonated.”

His latest comments represent his — latest — about turn: Just a day earlier, he had claimed that the US was engaged in back-channel conversations with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran. Tehran had rejected that claim.

This is just a confirmation of what Iran already have said days before the expiration of the MoU.

Trump holds off on talks with Iran until Tehran ‘ready to make a deal’: Official

A US official has said that President Donald Trump asked the US negotiating team to hold off on talks with Iran until Tehran is “ready to make a deal”.

The official said the US was having “positive talks” with Iran, but Trump “decided to wait”.

There is “no conflict” in the US administration’s position regarding talks with Iran, the official added.

See previous comment.

Ghalibaf slams ‘misplaced’ US attempts at ‘squeezing Iran harder’

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator, says the US is misplaced in “squeezing Iran harder” to win concessions in a post on X.

Ghalibaf said, “Americans think squeezing Iran harder will win concessions that were never part of the agreement. [US Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent and [War Secretary Pete] Hegseth are way out of their league. Stop waiting for the clown crew to pull a rabbit out of their hat and clean up the mess you made”.

US chose ‘economic suffocation’ over diplomacy, military escalation

Trump appears to have changed tack on negotiations with Iran, posting on social media that Washington is not in conversation with Tehran. The “deadlock is not due to a lack of diplomatic channels, but a fundamental clash of objectives”, Abas Aslani, senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, said.

“Tehran viewed the Islamabad MoU as a framework to end the conflict, but for the United States, they called it a ceasefire or operational pause in order to regroup, while maintaining economic suffocation,” he said. “When a party treats diplomacy as a weapon of coercion, you cannot expect a durable agreement.”

“Nobody knows what Trump’s plan is, […] uncertainty in Washington creates unpredictability,” he said.

It seems the US has neither gone for the diplomatic track nor a military escalation, but rather “economic suffocation”, which will not hold for long, as Iran would simply use the Strait of Hormuz to disrupt trade, Aslani concluded.

USS Abraham Lincoln completes 54th refueling operation off Bahrain

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier has completed its 54th refueling operation while operating within the Bahrain-headquartered US Fifth Fleet’s area of responsibility, according to a post from the vessel’s official X account.

The carrier stated that it operated alongside nine ships from the US Naval Air Transport Command for a total of 140 hours during the refueling operation, “receiving more than 20 million gallons of fuel [over 75.7 million liters], 10,261 pallets of food, parts & materials, & 2,103 triwalls of mail”.

The carrier is preparing to return to the US after a nine-month deployment, during which it participated in military operations against Iran.

The Trump administration has been heavily criticised for the conditions on the ship.

UAE says Iranian missiles targeted maritime traffic

The UAE’s Ministry of Defence had previously reported it “detected two ballistic missiles launched from Iran toward the country, with the first falling outside the country’s territorial waters, while the second fell within the territorial waters”.

The ministry now posted an update on X, in which it said the missiles “were targeting maritime traffic and fell into the sea”.

“The Ministry affirms its readiness to address any threats and to resolutely confront any attempt to undermine the security of the nation or maritime navigation in the region, thereby safeguarding the nation’s sovereignty, security, and stability, and protecting its national interests and resources”, the statement read.

French FM slams Iran after Tehran expels two diplomats amid ‘extreme tension’

French FM Jean-Noel Barrot has slammed Iran in a new post on X, after Tehran told two French diplomats to leave the country.

“The Iranian people, a great people, are the primary victims of this period of extreme tension in the Middle East, caught in a vise between the bloody repression of the January 2026 protests and the bombings,” the top diplomat said. “It is precisely because France stands alongside the Iranian people, supporting its artists, scientists, and researchers, that two French diplomats were scandalously and deliberately assaulted last July 19.”

“Two Iranian diplomats in France will be expelled in the coming days,” Barrot said.

Iran’s foreign ministry issued a statement saying two diplomats stationed at the French Embassy in Tehran were unwelcome to stay in the country, “in light of activities contrary to international law, particularly the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations”.

It added, “considering that despite several weeks having passed since the disclosure of their illegal actions, no action was taken by their home government to correct their behavior and ensure such actions would not be repeated”.

US Justice Department targets Iranian institute for activity linked to IRGC

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced charges against 17 members of Iran’s Mabna Institute for cyber activity and hacking “carried out on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other Iranian entities”.

In a statement, the Department said Mabna Institute was involved in “a widespread cyber campaign” targeting “more than 100,000 accounts belonging to university professors worldwide, successfully compromising approximately 8,000 accounts at American and foreign universities”.

The statement clarified that the Mabna Institute’s activities date back to at least 2013, adding that the 14-count indictment included eight additional defendants, joining nine who were previously indicted in 2018.

The campaign targeted 144 US universities and 178 foreign universities, at least 42 US companies and 11 foreign companies, as well as at least five US federal and local government agencies and two nongovernmental organizations, according to the statement.

The defendants stole more than 31 terabytes of academic and intellectual property data, along with email accounts belonging to employees at the targeted entities.

The “operations targeting companies and government agencies resulted in costs exceeding $20 million for investigating and addressing the breaches”.

UAE says all trade, financial transactions with Iran ‘halted’

The United Arab Emirates announces that “all trade, commercial exchange and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice”, according to the country’s Foreign Ministry.

The ministry said the decision came due to regional escalation ⁠that it ⁠said undermined ⁠regional and international peace and ‌security.

Iran dismisses accusation of missile attack on UAE as ‘baseless’

Iran has rejected accusations from the United Arab Emirates that it had launched two ballistic missiles at the country, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei calling the claim “baseless”.

Baghaei said he “completely rejected” the UAE’s allegation and expressed regret over what he described as accusations against Iran, saying such behaviour “is contrary to the principle of good neighbourliness” and undermines efforts to build trust and prevent escalating insecurity in the region.

“Accusing the Islamic Republic of Iran contradicts the principle of good neighborliness and hinders efforts to build trust among the countries of the region,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its official Telegram channel.

Baghaei called on “all regional parties” to refrain from making unsubstantiated accusations against Iran. “We call on all regional parties to avoid baseless accusations against Iran,” the ministry said.

The spokesperson said any assessment of the situation must account for what he called the continued “malicious actions” of the United States and Israel against regional peace and security, pointing to what he described as a history of false-flag operations in the region.

UAE trade cut-off more significant than US embargo

Mark Kimmitt, retired general and former US assistant secretary of state, says the UAE’s suspension of trade with Iran could carry more weight than US sanctions, given the Gulf country’s role in Iran’s economy.

“I don’t think that you can overstate or understate the importance of the trade, both financial and goods trade, between Dubai and Iran,” Kimmitt told Al Jazeera. “Right now, Dubai, UAE, is the largest seller of import goods to Iran, exceeding China, exceeding Turkey. So, one-third of Iran’s imports in any given year come from the UAE.”

Kimmitt said Dubai’s role as a financial hub has also long given Iran a channel to circumvent sanctions. “In many ways, the embargo being put on by the UAE is even more significant than the embargo being put on by the United States,” he said.

Regarding whether other Gulf states might follow the UAE’s lead if Iranian attacks continue, Kimmitt said he expected caution for now.

“There will be a wait-and-see attitude on what happens with the UAE and Iran,” he said, adding the move is “so significant” that Iran could view it as approaching an act of war, comparing it with “the United States surrounding Japan after World War II and enforcing a full embargo”.

Before the suspension, the UAE served as a vital commercial gateway for roughly one-third of all goods entering Iran. Top exported items included:

• Telephones and mobile devices: Valued at billions of dollars.
• Electronics and computers: Essential tech hardware.
• Consumer goods and apparel: Cosmetics, clothing, and general merchandise.
• Industrial and auto parts: Vehicle components and machinery.
• Foodstuffs: Various agricultural products and nuts

Iran’s blockade of Hormuz starting to ‘wear thin’: Ex-US official

Iran “should live up to the commitment it made in the MoU and allow free and open passage through the Strait of Hormuz,” says Mark Kimmitt, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs.

He said that Tehran’s blockade and its targeting of ships is starting to “wear thin” because it “no longer has a practical effect”.

“I think the down payment to any further discussion or any further negotiations is for Iran to lift their blockade of the Gulf and the Strait, and I think the United States will do the same,” he said. “However, the first move needs to be done by Iran, because that’s what they agreed to. And they have the international community against their blocking and this new protocol that they are trying to put in.”

Kimmitt said he believes communication is likely still taking place between the two sides despite their public rhetoric. “We need those discussions to lead to understanding, and the understandings to lead to negotiations,” he said, but that also the US is “happy to continue the blockade for an extended period of time”.

He said Iran’s actions “don’t seem to make coherent sense”.

Iran’s top security official mocks Trump’s claims over Strait of Hormuz

Iran’s top security official Mohsen Rezaei has mocked Trump’s declaration of the Strait of Hormuz as a US territory.

Rezaei, Iran’s secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X: “The gap between America’s inability to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and its claim to own it is greater than the 7,000-mile [11,265km] distance between Washington and the Strait itself”.

“Welcome to the post-American order in the Persian Gulf,” he added.

Oil crosses $91 – highest in three weeks

Brent crude futures were up 59 cents, or 0.7 percent at $91.46 a barrel at 16:31 GMT, whereas US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 75 cents, or 0.9 percent, at $85.25 a barrel.

Both contracts hit their highest price levels in three weeks in trading on Tuesday.