An apartment building in Tyre, Lebanon, on Tuesday, in the aftermath of an Israeli strike.Credit…Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times
The president met with aides for two hours at the White House about a possible cease-fire extension, according to a senior administration official. Earlier, Mr. Trump had suggested in a social media post that he was ready to make a decision.
Here’s the latest.
President Trump left a two-hour meeting on a possible deal with Iran without making a decision, a senior administration official said on Friday, despite suggesting on social media that he had intended “to make a final determination” during the gathering in the White House Situation Room.
It was not clear why Mr. Trump did not reach a decision. The president had insisted in a Truth Social post before the meeting that a deal extending the cease-fire would involve Iran’s reopening the Strait of Hormuz, pledging never to develop a nuclear bomb and allowing the United States to remove its enriched uranium. Iran has repeatedly pushed back on those terms.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at a Reagan Economic Forum event that the United States had seized $1 billion of Iranian cryptocurrency money as part of its effort to squeeze Iran’s economy. “Just outright grabbed the wallets,” Bessent said, referring to the accounts where digital currency is stored. “Some of them may be typing in right now and might not realize their wallet had been grabbed.”
President Trump’s meeting in the White House Situation Room to discuss a potential agreement with Iran lasted about two hours, but the president did not reach a decision on any new deal, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
The administration believes it is close to an agreement but there are still certain matters being debated including the unfreezing of funds for the Iranians, the official said.
The spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said on Friday that “message exchanges between Iran and the U.S. continue, but no final agreement has been reached,” according to IRNA, Iran’s state news agency. Baghaei reiterated Tehran’s stance that negotiations are currently “focused on ending the war” and do not concern “the nuclear issue.”
The comments, made in a telephone interview, come as President Trump said he was meeting with aides at the White House to make a “final determination” on a potential deal.
As negotiations over a potential deal between the United States and Iran continued, Tehran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Friday he had spoken with his counterpart in Oman. The two men, whose countries both abut the Strait of Hormuz, discussed the strait’s “future administration in line with our sovereign responsibilities and international law,” Araghchi said in a post on social media.
Iran has discussed partnering with Oman in a system charging fees for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, though it is unclear whether anything concrete will come of the discussions.
IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster, said that Araghchi had told the Omani minister that a peace deal “is conditional on stopping the excessive demands and inconsistent and contradictory stances from the U.S. side.”
Israeli troops push deeper into Lebanon
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Friday that the military had advanced deeper into Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade attacks, further undermining a monthlong cease-fire that has done little to stem the fighting.
Speaking in the north of Israel, near the Lebanese border, while visiting troops, Mr. Netanyahu said Israeli forces had “crossed the Litani,” a river that has long been a demarcation line in cease-fire arrangements in southern Lebanon.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
