Free Republic

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will head to Pakistan on Saturday morning to engage in “direct talks” with their Iranian counterparts, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Friday. “The Iranians reached out” and asked for an in-person conversation, as President Donald Trump had asked them to do, Leavitt said on Fox News.

Donald Trump convened an emergency situation room meeting with his inner circle on Saturday to discuss the precarious Strait of Hormuz situation, according to a report. The president met with Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others, Axios reported, citing two US officials. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Envoy Steve Witkoff, CIA Director John Ratliffe, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine also reportedly attended. The meeting comes amid reports that US soldiers are preparing to storm Iran-backed ships 'in a matter...

A regional intelligence official told Fox News that the Strait of Hormuz is "under full IRGC control and effectively closed at this moment." "Multiple vessels have been forced to turn around since this morning as they attempted to pass through the Strait," the official said. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) "opened fire on at least one vessel as part of the closure policy they declared last night," the official added. This comes after Iran’s joint military command said on Saturday that “control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous state" and is "under strict management and...

Iran insisted its uranium was “not going anywhere” despite Donald Trump claiming a deal had been struck for the US to remove the nuclear material.The US president told Reuters that he would work with the Iranian leadership to extract the radioactive element from the country at a “nice leisurely pace” before taking it back to America.But Iran’s foreign ministry rejected Mr Trump’s claim, insisting that no such deal existed.“Iran’s enriched uranium is not going to be transferred anywhere,” Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, said.Tehran officials also denied Mr Trump’s suggestion that the Islamic Republic had agreed...