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Middle East crisis live: Trump claims strait of Hormuz could open ‘by tomorrow’ as Iran denies any talks taking place

The Donald Trump doctrine has always contained a tenuous relationship with the truth. It was his mentor, the infamous New York lawyer Roy Cohn, who taught the young real estate mogul always to claim victory and never to admit defeat. Unfortunately for Trump, in Iran the US president has found a counterpart just as stubborn as himself. As Trump claims new negotiations are to begin with Tehran this week, Iran has shown it can also reignite the conflict by lobbing ballistic missiles at US bases in the region and maintaining a stranglehold on the strait of Hormuz, effectively taking initiative in the stalled peace process. And time is of the essence for Trump as the clock ticks toward a global energy crisis and a painful midterm elections for him and his Republican party. But as soon as his latest attempt to hammer out a peace deal was announced, it was denied by Iran and the US president was left fuming once again. Trump has suggested dozens of times since the beginning of the war that a deal with Iran is imminent, and his latest claim that new negotiations could produce a peace deal within days has shown the administration’s desperation to reopen the strait and find a road map out of the crisis. After promising to hit Iran “very hard”, Trump made a U-turn on Sunday and claimed that talks would continue and that the “perimeters of a deal” for the opening of Hormuz and the “denuclearization of Iran” had been agreed. Unfortunately, the Iranians don’t agree. In a statement on Monday, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson denied any peace negotiations were taking place. “We are not currently negotiating with the United States,” said Esmaeil Baqaei. “Our negotiations are with Oman to secure passage through the strait of Hormuz.” That may result in an agreement. But that will not result in the return of the strait of Hormuz to its prewar status, Baqaei added, in effect keeping the waterway a political football for the foreseeable future. “We must ensure that the strait of Hormuz cannot be misused by parties that have committed aggression against Iran,” said Baqaei. Little has changed since the last round of negotiations. Iran remains capable of closing the strait of Hormuz and stifling shipping – including a fifth of global oil supply – through the crucial waterway. The US remains capable of inflicting devastating strikes on Iran – despite a shortage of key munitions that could be needed for a war against key rivals like China – but has a lack of meaningful targets that could force Iran to change its policy. The Trump administration has been signalling a desire to end the conflict since April and three ceasefires have come and collapsed since then. With just over three months left until the US midterm elections, in which the Republicans are expected to lose the House and possibly even the Senate, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll last week showed that fewer than a third of Americans support the war in Iran, and 69% believe that Trump has not “clearly explained the goals of US military involvement in Iran”. For Iran, the strategic unpredictability has become a new weapon in a war that has counterintuitively strengthened its negotiating position, giving the regime new tools in slowing global oil supply and in attacking regional US allies in the Gulf. Iran has concluded that its best strategy is to “maximise the pain that they can impose on the United States and its partners in the region”, said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and an expert on Middle East security issues with a focus on Iran, during the institute’s podcast last week. The view there was that Trump “is not really yet ready for a deal with Iran, not a deal that would work for the Iranians anyway”. Iran is also facing a time crunch with a US blockade in effect halting trade out of the country. “They are now at a point where they don’t think just sitting back and having one round after another of diplomatic talks is the best way forward,” he added. “They’re trying to shake things up to try get Trump’s attention and see if they can get a different result.”

Fresh US-Iran talks are ‘last chance’ for Tehran to avoid war escalating, Trump says

New talks between Washington and Tehran are the “last chance” for Iran to forge a deal and avoid an escalation of US strikes on the country, Donald Trump said on Monday. Trump said he expected negotiations to begin in the next day or two to reopen the strait of Hormuz and create a pathway for Iran to address the US’s concerns about its nuclear programme. “The first phase is the opening of the straits. The second phase will be the denuclearization,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “And that will take a little while.” Trump reiterated that he was running out of patience with Iran. “This the last chance for them to sign a good document.” Iran has been in discussions with Oman about the creation of a temporary route through the strait that would allow commercial shipping to resume, but is not yet reviving talks with the US, Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said earlier on Monday. Esmail Baghaei denied claims by Trump that talks between the two sides covering all the major disputes between them could restart as early as Monday. “We are not currently negotiating with the United States,” he said. Trump claimed he had held off from launching the biggest strike on any country “since world war two” over the weekend after Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, rang him to urge diplomacy. Trump said the cancellation was conditional on Iran reaching a deal quickly. It is thought to be the 12th time in the war between the US and Iran that Trump has called off threatened strikes. On Monday, the US president called the Iranian leadership “unbelievably duplicitous” in a post on social media. “They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg’, talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman’. They then go on to give their usual blather in saying, the Strait of Hormuz will be operated powerfully by them, when it is already completely controlled by the United States Navy and our ‘Blockade’.” A middle route through the strait would represent progress. Iran is claiming full sovereignty over the strait and has been making demands over its routes and future management, including the possibility of charging fees in return for providing ships with maritime services. One proposal is to create a joint Omani-Iranian company that would provide all the services that insurance companies used to provide at high costs, but at lower prices, and with preferential tariffs for some countries. Unlocking a mutually acceptable route through the strait is the precondition to unlocking all the other agreements laid out in the memorandum of understanding, the ceasefire document both sides signed on 18 June. Disagreements about the memorandum’s obligations has led to a resumption of the war, which has spread to the Red Sea and to Iraq. Last week, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said Tehran was demanding that ships entering the strait take a route to the north close to Iran, but that some ships could take a southern route. Iran rejected the traffic being divided evenly between the two routes, and also that a third country could start de-mining the routes. Baghaei told a press conference in Tehran: “We are now talking about a corridor that will have a round trip route, not two or three separate routes. This intermediate route is to be used temporarily until a decision is made on a fixed route.” He framed the route as an alternative to the transport separation scheme, the longstanding prewar route overseen by the UN’s International Maritime Office. He said maps had been exchanged by the two sides. Baghaedi said an agreement on a route would not solve all the problems, pointing to the continuing US naval blockade of Iran’s ports, and that unless the US approach changed, there would be no significant improvement in the situation in the strait. Recently there had been gloom in Omani circles about reaching an agreement with Iran on routes, leading to a revival of preparations for Oman’s European allies to start to clear the southern route of mines, a step that might have provoked direct conflict between Iran and European powers. In a sign of the pressure Tehran diplomats face, a statement from the Assembly of Experts, the body of clerics that elects the supreme leader, warned against investing any trust in the US, saying: “Hope for understanding and agreement with this bullying regime will lead nowhere.” However, the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said he believed the “memorandum of understanding would prove to be the centre of gravity of our foreign relations in the future”. The Saudis’ intervention came in a week in which Riyadh attacked Iranian-backed forces inside Iraq and raised the temperature in its dispute with the Iranian-backed Houthis in northern Yemen, underlining the extent to which Saudi Arabia fears the consequence of an all-out US war against Iran spiralling out of control across the Middle East. Additional reporting by Associated Press

Athens suitcase death: suspect admits hiding body but denies murder

Greek authorities are investigating what may have motivated a 26-year-old Afghan man to kill a Scottish charity worker found dead in a suitcase in an abandoned building in Athens last month. Inquiries have focused increasingly on Elisabeth-Jane Ross’s last few hours alive and police believe they hold the key to revealing why the 38-year-old was targeted. On Sunday the suspect, identified as Sharif Ahmadzai, was accused of intentional homicide after three days of questioning. He will appear before an investigating magistrate to be formally charged on Wednesday. George Kalliakmanis, the honorary president of the police officers’ association in Athens, told the Guardian the homicide division was now intent on discovering the motive behind “the murder” because the Afghan was continuing to deny any role in it, although he had confessed to hiding Ross in a suitcase. “He has admitted to carrying her body in a trolley to the site. Police have CCTV footage of him doing this on the night of 16 July. He has also confessed to withdrawing €10,000 from ATMs using credit cards that belonged to her. But he has denied murder which police do not believe,” Kalliakmanis said. The Afghan, a professional boxer in the lightweight division, is believed to have arrived in Greece via the island of Lesbos as a child refugee at the height of Europe’s migration crisis 10 years ago. He has been quoted as telling police he discovered Ross’s lifeless body in the first floor flat of an apartment block he helped manage in Exarchia, a bohemian district in downtown Athens popular among leftists, foreigners and NGOs. Ahmadzai, who married a US citizen and devout Christian, Alaina Hall, in 2023, had keys to the flat where their own refugee solidarity group, Love Every Nation, regularly met. Investigators have confirmed that Ross, a friend of Hall’s with similar volunteering experience and religious views, had moved to the apartment on 10 July after staying with Greek friends and arriving the capital from Edinburgh on 26 June. Her last telephone call was made from her mobile phone on the night of 15 July – three days before her body was discovered by a homeless man in an abandoned building in Kypseli, about two miles away. Two possible scenarios in the run up to Ross’s death were being studied, police said. “We believe there was a confrontation,” said one source. “But that was spurred by Ross discovering the Afghan rummaging through her things and stealing her credit cards, or was it a case of sexual assault or the Briton spurning his advances?” Forensic scientists believe Ross was “likely asphyxiated” after an initial on-site postmortem, which showed there were no evident signs of injuries on her body. However, the autopsy was also deemed inconclusive because of advanced decay. Further toxicological tests and analysis of vital organs are expected to determine the exact cause of death in the coming days. Hall, who met Ahmadzai on Lesbos, is widely described as having played a “significant role” in the investigation. After allegedly becoming suspicious of Ahmadzai’s movements – and newfound wealth, the result of making cash withdrawals with Ross’s credit cards – she reportedly contacted the police, handed over cash he had given her and moved into a hotel. Adding to the mystery that has engulfed the inquiry, Ross’s phone was used for several days after her death, with text messages sent to family and friends. The messages were described as “deliberately misleading” by police, who believe they were sent in a bid to delay Ross being declared missing. One spoke of her “need to be alone”. “The Afghan’s partner was very helpful,” said Kalliakmanis. “From the day the victim was identified the investigation faced several challenges but thanks to the homicide division being so thorough they cracked it.” Police, who collaborated with the UK’s National Crime Agency and the Scottish service, combed through CCTV footage from cameras in the area where the suitcase was found and from banks where cash withdrawals were made before identifying the suspect.

Letter: Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani obituary

The reign of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani as emir of Qatar, from 1995 to 2013, was controversial. Although around 88% of Qatar’s residents were and remain foreign workers, laws intended to protect them were rarely enforced. Passport confiscation for the large numbers of migrant workers was commonplace, as were human trafficking and overcrowded and unsanitary labour camps. The emir arbitrarily made more than 5,000 Qataris of the Ghufran clan stateless, depriving them of state jobs, education and healthcare. Some of them stated that this was collective punishment, because some members were involved in a failed coup attempt in 1996. Injustices have continued as a result. In 2012, a Qatari court tried the poet Mohamed al Ajami in secret, and sentenced him to life imprisonment, apparently for criticism of the emir. He had already been held in custody for a year, and was released in 2016, following international pressure. A law punishing criticism of the emir with up to five years’ imprisonment remained in place.

Trump meets his obstinate match in Iran’s hardball regime

The Donald Trump doctrine has always contained a tenuous relationship with the truth. It was his mentor, the infamous New York lawyer Roy Cohn, who taught the young real estate mogul always to claim victory and never to admit defeat. Unfortunately for Trump, in Iran the US president has found a counterpart just as stubborn as himself. As Trump claims new negotiations are to begin with Tehran this week, Iran has shown it can also reignite the conflict by lobbing ballistic missiles at US bases in the region and maintaining a stranglehold on the strait of Hormuz, effectively taking initiative in the stalled peace process. And time is of the essence for Trump as the clock ticks toward a global energy crisis and a painful midterm elections for him and his Republican party. But as soon as his latest attempt to hammer out a peace deal was announced, it was denied by Iran and the US president was left fuming once again. “Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous!” he posted to his social media site, Truth Social, saying that Iran had begged for a meeting and talks had already begun. “Nothing gets through to Iran, unless we want it to, and nothing will get through, unless a Deal, or Total Surrender, is accomplished.” Trump has suggested dozens of times since the beginning of the war that a deal with Iran is imminent, and his latest claim that new negotiations could produce a peace deal within days has shown the administration’s desperation to reopen the strait and find a road map out of the crisis. After promising to hit Iran “very hard”, Trump made a U-turn on Sunday and claimed that talks would continue and that the “perimeters of a deal” for the opening of Hormuz and the “denuclearization of Iran” had been agreed. Unfortunately, the Iranians don’t agree. In a statement on Monday, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson denied any peace negotiations were taking place. “We are not currently negotiating with the United States,” said Esmaeil Baqaei. “Our negotiations are with Oman to secure passage through the strait of Hormuz.” That may result in an agreement. But that will not result in the return of the strait of Hormuz to its prewar status, Baqaei added, in effect keeping the waterway a political football for the foreseeable future. “We must ensure that the strait of Hormuz cannot be misused by parties that have committed aggression against Iran,” said Baqaei. Little has changed since the last round of negotiations. Iran remains capable of closing the strait of Hormuz and stifling shipping – including a fifth of global oil supply – through the crucial waterway. The US remains capable of inflicting devastating strikes on Iran – despite a shortage of key munitions that could be needed for a war against key rivals like China – but has a lack of meaningful targets that could force Iran to change its policy. The Trump administration has been signalling a desire to end the conflict since April and three ceasefires have come and collapsed since then. With just over three months left until the US midterm elections, in which the Republicans are expected to lose the House and possibly even the Senate, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll last week showed that fewer than a third of Americans support the war in Iran, and 69% believe that Trump has not “clearly explained the goals of US military involvement in Iran”. For Iran, the strategic unpredictability has become a new weapon in a war that has counterintuitively strengthened its negotiating position, giving the regime new tools in slowing global oil supply and in attacking regional US allies in the Gulf. Iran has concluded that its best strategy is to “maximise the pain that they can impose on the United States and its partners in the region”, said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and an expert on Middle East security issues with a focus on Iran, during the institute’s podcast last week. The view there was that Trump “is not really yet ready for a deal with Iran, not a deal that would work for the Iranians anyway”. Iran is also facing a time crunch with a US blockade in effect halting trade out of the country. “They are now at a point where they don’t think just sitting back and having one round after another of diplomatic talks is the best way forward,” he added. “They’re trying to shake things up to try get Trump’s attention and see if they can get a different result.”

Stronger EU borders needed after Ceuta crisis, von der Leyen says

The president of the European Commission has called for action to strengthen Europe’s borders after tens of thousands of people arrived and quickly left the Spanish territory of Ceuta, triggering a furious row between Madrid and other European countries. In a letter to Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, on Monday, Ursula von der Leyen said: “From this incident, it is clear that we must do more to further strengthen our borders at critical points, including vigilant monitoring and the use of physical barriers where needed.” She praised the Spanish socialist leader’s swift handling of the crisis, after the vast majority of migrants left Ceuta and Spanish officials began installing a 500-metre (1,640ft) floating barrier at the border ‌with Morocco. “Order has been restored and the returns system in place worked,” she wrote in the letter. Spain ⁠estimates that about 69,500 migrants have returned to Morocco over the past four days, exceeding initial estimates of 50,000 having arrived in the enclave in north Africa on Thursday. Authorities in Ceuta reported that 88 people died trying to reach the territory, while at least 11 deaths have been recorded in Morocco. Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish enclave, have the EU’s only land borders with Africa. There are periodic surges in attempted crossings to both cities, although neither permits onward free movement to the EU as they are outside the border-free Schengen zone. EU interior ministers will hold emergency talks on Tuesday, which von der Leyen said would be a chance to draw lessons from the crossings. She said the EU should double down on five areas: strengthening cooperation with non-EU countries to prevent migration; stronger external borders; implementing early warning systems; dismantling smuggling networks; and boosting returns of people with no right to stay. Italian media reported that Giorgia Meloni’s government wanted to accelerate the opening of offshore migration centres, which Europe’s top human rights expert recently said risked becoming “human rights black holes”. The EU opened the door to offshore detention centres in June in an unprecedented departure from legal norms as part of a law aiming to increase the deportations of people with no legal right to stay. Amid heavy criticism of the EU’s divided response to the Ceuta border crossings, von der Leyen stressed that Spain could access EU funds as well as support from the Frontex border agency. So far Madrid has not requested the assistance of Frontex. The crossings – seized on by far-right politicians across Europe – have exposed deep divisions over migration that have left Spain’s leader isolated. Over the weekend, Sánchez criticised other governments for failing to support Spain, after Italy and Denmark led calls for its temporary exclusion from the Schengen zone. Sánchez said such an attitude was “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance or political interest” and contrary to European and humanitarian law “and the principles of solidarity that bind us together”. Italy and Denmark organised a letter signed by 20 other EU member states that appeared to blame the crisis on Sánchez’s decision to regularise the status of 500,000 migrants without documents. “We have a duty to effectively deter and relentlessly combat illegal migration,” the 22 leaders wrote, arguing for the need to address “all policies that can serve as pull factors, such as the regularisation of [a] very large number of irregular migrants”. EU member states favouring a tough approach to migration are expected to raise the issue of “pull factors” on Tuesday. “There is some concern that the regularisation of 1.2 million people can be used to paint a picture that the door is open,” an EU diplomat said, referring to the approximate number of people who applied for regularisation under the 2026 Spanish government programme. Academic research has found no evidence of a pull effect from regularisation programmes on arrivals of irregular migrants. Michele LeVoy, the director of Picum, an umbrella group that campaigns for the rights of undocumented migrants, said regularisation programmes had been criticised by EU governments for the last two decades. “If an EU country offers regularisation possibilities, other member states believe that it may invite secondary movement [onward movement to other EU member states] – that is what EU member states don’t want and that explains most likely the harsh response.” Amid widespread suspicion that Morocco helped fuel the crisis, von der Leyen described the country as “an important strategic partner”, especially in combating “illegal migration”. Officials said that before the Ceuta crossings, the European Commission was looking to upgrade the EU’s diplomatic relationship with Morocco to a “strategic and comprehensive partnership”. The EU already has similar wide-ranging agreements with Egypt and Tunisia, which include pledges to stem migration, but which have been heavily criticised by rights groups. Von der Leyen wrote: “On anything related to Ceuta and Melilla, we could enhance border management early-warning systems and improve our technical and financial support to Morocco.” Rights groups said people seeking work or fleeing persecution needed routes to move safely. LeVoy said: “On Ceuta, political games are being played over the lives of people on both sides of the border – those who hope for a better life, and those who are made to fear a so-called ‘invasion’. But what happened in and around Ceuta is fundamentally the result of Europe’s inaction on decent work permits and other regular pathways and the dismantling of its asylum systems.”

Anti-war politician flees Russia amid pre-election crackdown on dissent

The prominent Russian anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin has fled to Paris as Moscow tightens its grip on dissent before parliamentary elections later this year. Nadezhdin, a veteran liberal politician, gained international prominence during Russia’s 2024 presidential election when his long-shot campaign against Vladimir Putin unexpectedly gathered momentum before electoral authorities barred him from running. Since his presidential campaign, Nadezhdin, 63, has remained one of the last well-known Russian public figures to publicly oppose the war in Ukraine. That made him an increasingly uncomfortable figure for the Kremlin. “Good news: I’m alive and free. Unfortunately, I’m not in Russia for the time being,” Nadezhdin said in a video filmed in front of the Eiffel Tower. He added that he needed “to look around and figure out life going forward”. Last month, less than three weeks after registering to run in September’s parliamentary elections, he was briefly detained and accused of a minor administrative violation in what was widely seen as an attempt to intimidate him and undermine his candidacy. The same month, the justice ministry designated Nadezhdin a “foreign agent” – a label that carries onerous reporting requirements, increased government scrutiny, and a powerful stigma in Russia. The designation, combined with a conviction on an extremism-related administrative charge, barred him from running in September’s parliamentary elections, which are widely expected to be tightly controlled by the Kremlin. In an interview with the Russian independent outlet Meduza last month, Nadezhdin said he and his family were considering leaving Russia as pressure from the authorities intensified. While he said he wanted to remain in the country and run in the parliamentary elections, he acknowledged that the growing risk of imprisonment was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian authorities launched an unprecedented crackdown on dissent, targeting independent media, human rights groups, civil society organisations and critics of the war. Hundreds have been imprisoned and thousands more have fled the country. Putin’s ruling United Russia party is seeking to preserve its dominance in the lower house of parliament in September’s state-managed elections, in which no genuine opposition is allowed to take part. The vote comes amid signs of growing public fatigue with the war in Ukraine, as fuel shortages and mounting economic pressures weigh on Russians, leaving the Kremlin increasingly unwilling to tolerate even token opposition.

Paris prosecutor investigates alleged bullying in government departments after suicide attempt

The Paris state prosecutor has opened a preliminary inquiry into alleged workplace bullying after the attempted suicide of a staff member in a department connected to the French prime minister’s office, France Inter radio has revealed. The public radio station reported on Monday that two government workers in different departments had ended their lives in the past year, and two others had attempted suicide. The radio station said complaints of alleged workplace bullying had been made. A complaint had been made by a staff representative to the Paris prosecutor in June over alleged bullying in certain government departments, the station said. The prosecutor has opened a preliminary inquiry. A document seen by France Inter and AFP said a complaint had been made that “presumed institutional bullying” had allegedly led a staff member to attempt to end their life. Three internal government inquiries have also been opened into specific cases and broader workplace wellbeing. The allegations of workplace bullying relate to a group of dozens of government departments and missions working under the umbrella of services of the prime minister. The staff member at the centre of the prosecutor’s preliminary inquiry worked in a service that handled issues related to correspondence for the prime minister’s office, France Inter reported. The woman’s lawyer, Christelle Mazza, told the radio station: “My client had been made [to feel] invisible. She was no longer invited to attend meetings, had been taken off the staff list, treated as if she was no one. She was mocked and jeered at as if it was playground bullying, [she was] ostracised.” The lawyer said difficulties for staff had been compounded by the instability of governments after Emmanuel Macron dissolved the national assembly and called a snap election in June 2024. In the two years from June 2024 to June 2026, there were four prime ministers: Gabriel Attal in a caretaker role, Michel Barnier, François Bayrou and Sébastien Lecornu. No wrongdoing was alleged of the prime ministers. In a statement, two senior officials in the department of services of the prime minister expressed full respect and support to colleagues and families after the suicides and attempted suicides. They said psychological welfare was “a constant priority” for the prime minister’s services and a specialist audit on workplace wellbeing would be conducted. One case of attempted suicide was investigated and found not to be connected to the government service, they said. Another case of attempted suicide was at the centre of an administrative inquiry after allegations of bullying. For the two deaths by suicide, “investigations are under way in close cooperation with trade union staff representatives”, they said. The officials added: “None of the people concerned worked directly with the prime minister or in his office.” • In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org