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Rubio hopes US can reach Hormuz deal with Iran ‘very shortly’ as officials say progress has been made – as it happened

Iran and Oman made progress on Tuesday toward a deal to reopen the strait of Hormuz, a potential breakthrough that could help end the war, regional officials said. Under the emerging agreement, ships would enter the Persian Gulf through an Iranian-controlled route and exit through a route controlled by Oman, with service fees charged for providing security and preserving the maritime environment, two regional officials told the Associated Press. US secretary of state Marco Rubio ⁠said there has been ⁠progress made in discussions with Iran ⁠and Oman on ‌getting ‌more ships through ‌the strait of Hormuz but no final agreement has been ‌reached. “There’s been progress made in those talks, but not finality yet. ⁠We’re hoping that will happen very shortly,” Rubio told reporters ‌at the US state department. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said Washington could reach a deal with Iran by tomorrow to reopen the strait of Hormuz. “We are in talks with the Iranians, and I think there is a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the strait and move towards a more normalised position in this conflict,” he said in an interview with CNBC. Qatar’s foreign ministry said efforts to reach a diplomatic solution between the US and Iran were “ongoing”, despite conflicting statements from Tehran and Washington over whether negotiations had resumed. “We can confirm that the efforts are still ongoing with all parties,” the ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, told reporters at a briefing today. Iran’s president was also forced to deny claims that he has repeatedly threatened to resign as he battles hardline factions opposed to reaching a settlement with the US over the strait of Hormuz. Masoud Pezeshkian accused some of wishing to create a rift inside Iran and said: “If I want to resign, I will officially announce that I have resigned. I will not resign, I will stand.” Here’s our story on that. Meanwhile, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces will not withdraw from their current lines in Gaza until Hamas has completely disarmed. Sugessting there were differences between Israel and the Trump administration over a recent deal announced to disarm the militant group, Netanyahu, who faces a tough battle for re-election in October, said that Hamas’s disarmament should come first, and that Israeli forces would continue to “do whatever is necessary to protect themselves, our territory, and our citizens.” He added that the Trump administration “sent us a draft. We did not agree. It is not our draft. We sent our comments. This is our position. We stand firm on our interests, I believe both wisely and resolutely.” And the ⁠latest round of US-facilitated talks between ⁠Israel ⁠and Lebanon also began on Tuesday in Rome ⁠and will continue through Thursday, ⁠US state department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said. “These discussions bring together technical teams from both governments to advance full implementation of the Trilateral Framework, including the pilot zone process, verified disarmament of Hizballah and other Iran-backed security threats, redeployment of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, and laying the ground for a comprehensive peace and security agreement,” Pigott wrote in ‌a post on X.

Iran’s president denies threatening to resign during talks over strait of Hormuz

Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president, has been forced to deny claims that he has repeatedly threatened to resign as he battles hardline factions opposed to reaching a settlement with the US over the strait of Hormuz. The US and Europe hope a deal is imminent to reopen the strait and they are putting pressure on Oman to accept a temporary agreement that officials in Muscat fear will leave Iran retaining near permanent dominance of the vital oil shipping channel. Ships would enter the strait in a route close to Iran, but leave on a route that passes through Iranian and Omani waters. But far from being feted over an imminent diplomatic victory, Pezeshkian was instead forced to deny that he had repeatedly offered to resign, verbally and in writing, during a television interview marking his second anniversary in the job. Pezeshkian accused some of wishing to create a rift inside Iran and said: “If I want to resign, I will officially announce that I have resigned. I will not resign, I will stand.” The resignation claims, which have been front page news in Iran, were made by Mohammad Bagher Kharazi, who is linked by marriage to Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader. He said Pezeshkian had become frustrated at being excluded from decision making, made worse by the supreme leader’s reluctance to reveal his whereabouts for fear of foreign intelligence agencies. Khamenei was badly injured in the Israeli bombing on the first day of the war that killed his father and has not been seen or heard in public since. Kharazi claimed Pezeshkian had threatened to quit so many times that Khamenei warned him he would accept the next resignation threat, a claim Khamenei’s office eventually said on Tuesday was “fundamentally false and untrue”. Pezeshkian insisted in the interview that he was in complete harmony with the military and said those that claimed 30,000 people had been killed in the January protests never took up the offer to provide proof. The interview, marking the halfway point of his turbulent presidency, appeared to be an attempt to dispel the impression that his belief in consensus was a weakness, or that he had been sidelined by hardline war leaders. Kharazi is the brother-in-law of Massoud Khamenei, the younger brother of the supreme leader. Critics say he has a record of making unsubstantiated allegations and despite his family connections to the supreme leader, it is not clear if he has seen him since his elevation to the post in March. However, the row has highlighted the deep strategic and tactical differences inside Iran over the wisdom of talks with the US. Mehdi Tabatabaei, a senior member of the Iranian president’s office, described the reports as “complete nonsense and lies”. In a post on social media, he condemned a “sinister coalition of lying, deceitful and reckless extremism”whose members could not accept democratic outcomes. He said: “Two years have passed since their failure in the arena of national elections, yet they are still seeking revenge against the will of the nation. They have become puppets of Iran’s enemies.” Ahmad Zeidabadi, a reformist reporter, said the claims were inflammatory and served only to exacerbate tensions. Pezeshkian on Sunday suggested that the memorandum of understanding, negotiated with the US in June and reviled by some hardliners, would serve as a cornerstone for Iranian foreign relations in the future, saying that Iran “must strive to compel the enemy to remain committed to what it has signed”. On Monday, the conservative-dominated Assembly of Experts issued a statement describing hopes for an agreement or understanding with the US as “futile” and labelled what it termed “whispers of capitulation in the name of defending peace” an “unforgivable betrayal”. It added that trusting this arrogant government was nothing more than a mirage. Khamenei himself had said in April he was opposed to talks with the US in principle, but in deference to Pezeshkian had allowed them to go ahead.

India’s ruling BJP loses byelection in stronghold after Cockroach student protests

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party has lost a byelection in a seat it had held for three decades, after the Cockroach movement student protests that have shaken Narendra Modi’s government. Prashant Kishor, a high-profile electoral strategist turned politician, scored a breakthrough win for his fledgling Jan Suraaj (Good Governance) party in the Bankipur constituency in Patna, the capital of the eastern state of Bihar. The byelection, in what had been considered a BJP stronghold, was closely watched because it came in the aftermath of nationwide student protests over exam paper leaks that forced the resignation of the education minister, a rare retreat by a government that prides itself on not yielding to public pressure. Kishor said his victory was a wake-up call for Modi to improve education and create jobs. The BJP lost two of three byelection contests this week, with the opposition Congress retaining the Datia constituency in central Madhya Pradesh. The BJP comfortably held Manjalpur in Gujarat, Modi’s home state. Kishor’s supporters said his campaign had succeeded by focusing on issues that resonated with younger voters, particularly education, exams scandals and unemployment. Deepak Sharma, a former BJP supporter, told the Hindu newspaper: “Unlike other political leaders who make lofty promises, he raised the simple slogan: vote for the future of your children.” The opposition have said the student protest movement is beginning to dent BJP support among younger voters. Nearly two-thirds of India’s population is under 35. While the official youth unemployment rate is 16%, nearly 40% of graduates aged 15-25 and 20% of those aged 25-29 are jobless, far higher proportions than among the less educated, according to the latest State of Working India report by Azim Premji University. The Cockroach Janata party began as an online joke after a senior judge described unemployed young Indians as cockroaches and parasites. It has since morphed into a nationwide movement with 26.6 million Instagram followers, more than the BJP and Congress combined. The BJP’s president, Nitin Nabin, who previously represented Bankipur, described the largely gen Z protesters as “a virus and a cockroach gang devoted to breaking the country” during the byelection campaign. After he lost the election, he said the party would “undertake a thorough introspection”. Senior BJP sources quoted in the Indian media said the loss has shown that even core supporters could change their minds. A significant victory for the BJP in West Bengal last year expanded the party’s reach into one of the last major regions outside its control, but that triumph has been followed by a string of political headaches, including the student protests. The government has also become embroiled in a separate confrontation with the social media company Meta after a video featuring Modi in which he promised to crack down on exam fraud briefly disappeared from Facebook. The parliamentary committee on communications and information technology has demanded Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, apologise personally and explain how the video vanished. According to local media, Meta executives have already apologised and blamed automated systems designed to detect fake content. The row has highlighted broader government unease about the influence of foreign technology companies over political discourse. Nishikant Dubey, the chair of the committee, said large parties such as the BJP and Congress often received less visibility online than movements with no formal political status. “The country needs to understand what Meta, X and YouTube are doing through their algorithms,” Dubey said. Ajoy Bose, a Delhi-based political analyst, said the Bankipur defeat carried symbolic weight far beyond a single constituency. “Coming as it does after the student protests, the optics look very bad for the BJP. I would not directly connect the result to the protests, but Bihar was one of the main centres of the student agitation, so the two will inevitably be linked in public perception.” But he cautioned against reading the outcome as evidence of a nationwide shift in voter sentiment. “What’s changing is the perceived invincibility of the BJP’s election machine,” Bose said. “There was a widespread belief the party had every election sewn up.”

Calls to ban disposable barbecues in England and Wales over wildfire risk

Farmers and landowners are calling for a temporary ban on disposable barbecues in England and Wales, as they warn of the risk of igniting wildfires. The call, which has also been made by firefighters and is backed by the Liberal Democrats and many Labour MPs, comes as much of England faces further hot dry weather, despite rain in some areas. The deputy president of the National Farmers Union, Paul Tompkins, said wildfires were an urgent concern as farmers counted the cost of lost or poor harvests caused by record heatwaves supercharged by the climate crisis over the last three months and the worst drought in many areas since 1976. Dry conditions have meant vegetation is much more prone to ignition through carelessness or deliberate fire-starting. Tompkins said: “A stray match or single spark, and months of hard work can be wiped out in just minutes; crops destroyed and harvest ruined, vital machinery and infrastructure damaged and livestock put at serious risk. “Beyond the immediate losses, there could be long-term consequences for soil health, grassland productivity and confidence of farm businesses already facing significant pressures.” He called for retailers to remove disposable barbecues from sale, and for local authorities to issue public space protection orders prohibiting the lighting of barbecues, campfires and camping stoves. The MP for High Peak in Derbyshire, Jon Pearce, wrote to retailers this week, asking them to stop selling disposable barbecues. Most big supermarkets have already halted sales and some have not sold them for years. But they are still widely available in smaller shops, from some hardware and DIY stores and online. Wildfires have affected every region of the UK this year, with more than 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) estimated to have burned. There have been fires in the Rhondda Valley in Wales this week and the Cairngorms in Scotland last week, while a blaze in Suffolk came within a few miles of the Sizewell B nuclear plant. Fires have been going on for months. Blazes hit the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland, areas near Aberdeen, and the Brecon Beacons national park in Wales. Tompkins also called for more grazing in moorland areas to reduce vegetation, but conservationists are wary of overgrazing in delicate habitats. Some observers have blamed rewilding for the increasing wildfire risk, a claim rebuffed by experts who said rewilding land could vastly reduce risky conditions. The financier and conservationist Ben Goldsmith pointed to the reintroduction of beavers in some rivers, which has increased the surrounding land’s ability to store water and helped to avoid some of the worst impacts of the drought. The Country Land and Business Association (CLA), which represents landowners, also called for a ban on disposable barbecues, but at the same time a lifting of the ban on controlled burning. It is banned in England to protect wildlife and habitats, and to reduce carbon emissions. The CLA’s president, Gavin Lane, said: “Controlled burning is one of several proven ways to reduce the danger. Done properly, it clears the vegetation that feeds a wildfire and slows its spread. Natural England must lift the ban on controlled burning and look seriously at how it could prevent further loss.” Rain fell in the north of England and Scotland on Tuesday, while thundery showers in Northern Ireland and scattered showers in Wales brought some relief. South-east England was mainly dry despite overcast skies. A government spokesperson said: “There are no plans to introduce a blanket ban on disposable barbecues. “We take the risk of fires very seriously, which is why we’ve taken action to make disposable barbecues safer to use, including making sure they follow strict product safety rules and giving councils the power to ban them in high-risk areas.”

US and Qatar report progress on Iran ceasefire and reopening Hormuz strait

US and Qatari officials have said progress is being made in restoring a ceasefire in the US-Iran war and reopening the strait of Hormuz. The optimistic speculation on Tuesday brought oil prices down 2%, but the strait remained closed to shipping and a cargo vessel was reportedly struck by an unidentified projectile off Oman’s coast close to the strait. Britain’s maritime security agency, UKMTO, reported the strike on Monday night but did not name the vessel. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said the US and Iran were negotiating and told CNBC television: “I think there is a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the strait and move towards a more normalised position in this conflict.” His remarks echo similarly upbeat comments on Monday from Donald Trump, who claimed that a breakthrough was imminent, though Tehran quickly denied it was involved in any direct talks with the US. Qatari and Pakistani mediators said they were talking to both sides in an effort to close gaps, restore the ceasefire deal from the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in mid-June and reopen the Hormuz strait, which was the portal for a fifth of the world’s oil and liquified natural gas. Qatar’s ‌foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, said Qatar, Pakistan and Oman were mediating in close coordination and exchanging draft proposals between Washington and Tehran. He said the diplomatic contacts had reached “very progressive stages”. A senior Pakistani security official told Reuters news agency: “A lot is happening in the ‌background … We are talking to both sides. Our sole goal at this moment is to make both parties at least agree to start talking.” However, neither Qatar nor Pakistan are directly involved in the focus of negotiations in recent days, which has been between Iran and Oman on a temporary transit scheme that would allow ships to enter and leave the Gulf. The MoU broke down in July when vessels tried to cross the strait along the Omani coast without seeking Iranian approval, and Iran attacked them. Regional diplomats involved in the talks said Oman was under concerted US, European and Saudi pressure to accept a temporary scheme that would allow shipping to enter the Gulf via a route through the strait close to Iran, and then leave on a southern route along the Omani coast, which would be jointly controlled with Iran. The contentious issue of Iran’s demand to charge transiting vessels tolls or other fees would be left to be decided during a 60-day negotiating period, during which time Iran’s nuclear programme would also be addressed. The Omani government has been resisting the Hormuz proposal out of fear it could become permanent and give Tehran an enduring say over sea routes in Omani waters, the regional diplomats said. The Iranian state-run broadcaster IRIB reported on Tuesday evening: “These negotiations, taking place between the two coastal countries of the strait of Hormuz, are focused on determining safe routes for ships to transit. The talks have so far been assessed as positive at both the technical and political levels, and Iran is working with Oman to develop the necessary mechanisms for future arrangements to manage shipping traffic in this strategic waterway.” The talks are complicated by splits in Tehran, according to the diplomats, with the foreign ministry keen to do a deal and fearing Iranian control of the Hormuz strait could prove to be a wasting asset over time as sea traffic finds alternative routes. Regime hardliners, on the other hand, oppose the deal on the grounds that the US administration cannot be trusted to deliver the financial benefits promised in return for opening the strait. “I think the regime understands the magnitude of the hold Iran has over the strait, and they smell the desperation coming from the US in terms of [trying to] strike a deal,” a diplomat from the region said. Another diplomat said Riyadh was putting particularly heavy pressure on Oman because the Saudis thought “we may be on the brink of a regional war because there is a big faction in Iran that does not want a deal under any circumstances”.

EU chief criticises Spain’s migrant plan after Ceuta crisis meeting

The EU’s top official on migration has criticised Spain’s plan to regularise undocumented migrants as “not a good signal” for Europe, after an emergency meeting intended to draw a line under divisions on the Ceuta crisis. Magnus Brunner, the European commissioner for migration, said that while the EU could not currently see a direct link between events in Ceuta and Spain’s regularisation plan, the policy was “definitely not a good signal for the rest of Europe”. It was a rare note of discord as the EU sought to move on from an acrimonious row, caused after tens of thousands of migrants arrived – and mostly left – the tiny Spanish territory in north Africa. EU interior ministers held a hastily arranged video conference on Tuesday, intended to learn lessons from the politically divisive Ceuta crisis and chart next steps. Spain’s government said at least 75 people had died trying to reach the territory last week, although Ceuta authorities on Monday put the death toll at 88, with at least 11 more on the Moroccan side of the border. About 70,000 of the 72,000 people who entered Ceuta had left, Spain’s interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, told reporters on Tuesday. He described the EU meeting as constructive, saying ⁠member states had recognised Madrid’s “immediate and efficient” response. Brunner said the past few days had been “a test of our resilience” and the EU’s external border. The situation, he said, was under control; no one had moved to mainland Spain and the EU’s border-free Schengen zone had not been affected. The message of unity came after several EU member states heavily criticised Spain. Twenty two signed a letter, organised by Italy and Denmark, that implicitly criticised Madrid’s plan to regularise 500,000 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers as a “pull factor” for “illegal migration”. Nearly 1.2 million people have applied for the scheme. Asked about Spain’s regularisation policy, Brunner said it was not discussed on Tuesday, but added: “I always say to this regularisation discussion … it’s not a good signal, definitely not a good signal for the rest of Europe.” He went on: “I do understand that it is a member state’s competence. And I do understand that Spain did it because it’s mainly about Latin Americans speaking the same language, having the same culture, but the signal for the rest of Europe is not a good one, definitely not.” Brunner declined to criticise Italy’s decision to reintroduce air and sea border checks with Spain for one month, after the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said such moves were informed by “prejudice, fake news, ignorance and political interest”. Brunner said any suspension of Schengen rules had to be proportionate and temporary, adding: “I have some understanding of this reaction of the Italians, because the citizens are concerned.” France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said EU ministers had agreed the Schengen zone was “not the problem”. France was one of the few member states not to sign the letter of 22 EU leaders indicating readiness to reintroduce border checks, although it did step up its own controls. Denmark’s interior minister, Morten Bødsko, said he was “very satisfied” with Spain’s handling of the crisis, but doubled down on the message that the EU needed tougher border controls, adding: “Uncontrolled immigration is a threat to Europe and Denmark.” Ministers broadly endorsed a five-point plan set out by European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, who proposed further action to strengthen Europe’s external borders, including an early-warning system and better cooperation with non-EU countries on migration. A statement published by the EU council after the meeting said there was “a common understanding of the need to continue relentlessly fighting migrant smuggling networks, to reinforce returns, to strengthen EU borders, to build deep partnerships with third countries, and to improve foresight”. Ministers emphasised the need to improve “situational awareness, which could be achieved by further developing early-warning systems such as pre-frontier intelligence and social media monitoring” and efforts to “counter malicious external actors engaged in foreign information manipulation and interference”, the statement said. The EU’s foreign policy service was investigating the possible role played by Russian disinformation, but it was too early to reach conclusions, Brunner said. Migration has been a deeply divisive issue for the EU since the 2015-16 crisis, when more than a million people sought asylum in the union. As far-right and nationalist parties seek to outflank mainstream rivals on the issue, tensions remain high, despite fewer people making irregular crossings. The EU’s border agency, Frontex, reported 178,000 irregular border crossings in 2025, down 26% on the previous year and the lowest since 2021, when much of Europe was in Covid lockdown. Irregular arrivals in Spain (36,683) were significantly lower than in Italy (66,328) and Greece (51, 399), as well as attempted and successful crossings to the UK (65,891), according to Frontex. The 2015-16 crisis paved the way for a sweeping overhaul of the EU’s asylum and migration rules, which came into force in June. Brunner emphasised the need to implement the EU’s migration pact, playing down a suggestion from Greece that further emergency measures were required. The Greek prime minister, Kyriákos Mitsotákis, in an article for Politico, said countries should be able to suspend asylum applications for newly arrived people when facing “exceptional situations of extreme and disproportionate pressure”. Europe was facing the “deliberate instrumentalisation of migration by state and non-state actors”, he wrote, saying the pact did not provide the tools for these scenarios. Brunner disagreed – “the pact does offer solutions for this” – while not ruling out changes, saying EU leaders would discuss a “strategic way forward”.