LIVE German 2025 Election Results

Iran’s president said Monday that the country’s supreme leader is calling for “unity and cohesion” as the Islamic Republic faces economic hardships and sanctions stemming from its war with the U.S.

President Masoud Pezeshkian described a nearly seven-hour meeting with Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei in an interview with Iranian state television that aired amid apparent tensions among the Islamic Republic’s leaders.

Pezeshkian told state broadcaster IRIB that he and Khamenei discussed “people’s livelihoods, the state of the market, employment, people’s housing,” as well as “problems that are now being created as a result of the [U.S.] sanctions.” He didn’t say when or where they met.

Most important, he said, was Khamenei’s emphasis on unity.

“All of the enemy’s plans are aimed at creating division,” Pezeshkian said. “What we have to do is prevent divisions from emerging.”

It is only the second time the Iranian president said he has met with the new supreme leader since Khamenei was appointed in March following a U.S.-Israeli strike that killed his father. Khamenei, believed to have been wounded in the same attack, has not appeared in public since then.

Iranian missiles are now able to change course to evade air defenses, a spokesperson for the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed Monday. 

“Iran’s missiles no longer merely fire from one point and land at another point, as in the past, but have the capabilities of guidance and rerouting,” IRGC spokesman Brig. Gen. Hossein Moheb said. “Some missiles can change their course, changing direction against the enemy’s air-defense systems.”

After an Iranian missile strike on a U.S. air base in Jordan last month killed two U.S. soldiers, Jordanian Lt. Gen. Qasid Mahmoud, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff for his country’s armed forces before he retired, told WTX US News that the Iranians “use simple missiles to distract the radar … They then fire better quality missiles, which change their final target in the last 30 or 40 kilometers.”

Moheb also claimed that Iranian forces can now modify a missile’s designated target mid-flight.

Iran reiterated Monday that the Strait of Hormuz will not return to pre-war conditions. 

The deputy speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Ali Nikzad, said the U.S. and Israel have realized they must accept the new reality, in remarks reported by state broadcaster IRIB. 

“The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz has no military solution and [they] must submit to the new regional order,” he said.

Regarding ongoing talks with Oman, Nikzad said Iran recognizes no route through the Strait other than one agreed upon by the two countries.

“The route determined by the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the only possible route for the passage of ships,” he said.

Iran reiterated Monday that the Strait of Hormuz will not return to pre-war conditions. 

The deputy speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Ali Nikzad, said the U.S. and Israel have realized they must accept the new reality, in remarks reported by state broadcaster IRIB. 

“The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz has no military solution and [they] must submit to the new regional order,” he said.

Regarding ongoing talks with Oman, Nikzad said Iran recognizes no route through the Strait other than one agreed upon by the two countries.

“The route determined by the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the only possible route for the passage of ships,” he said.

Oman said on Monday it was working to contain an oil spill off its southern coast after a tanker ran aground in June inside a protected marine area, triggering calls for action by environmentalists.

It follows an investigation by the Agence France-Presse news agency that found the ship had been stranded for weeks near al-Qibliyyah island after it was rocked by explosions.

The Oman Environment Authority said Monday the ongoing spill had affected roughly 150 square miles, according to its most recent analysis.

The slick was concentrated around Oman’s Hallaniyat archipelago off the country’s southern coast, where a marine reserve was established last year to protect sensitive ecosystems home to diverse marine life, including rare sea turtles.

Omani authorities have not yet identified the cause of the spill. But British maritime security company Vanguard told AFP last week that the tanker was rocked by explosions in early June as it sailed off the coast of Yemen, causing water to enter several sections of the vessel.

Advocacy groups Greenpeace and PAX told AFP that the spill was on the verge of causing an “environmental disaster,” saying the tanker was carrying around one million barrels of crude.

The ship is believed to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” that Moscow uses to circumvent Western sanctions on its oil exports. The fleet includes aging vessels that have faced criticism over maintenance, insurance and safety standards.

Oil prices gained close to two percent Monday as the United States and Iran remained deadlocked over a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to Gulf tanker and cargo traffic.

Crude prices extended gains after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned Sunday that they would not reopen the strait until Washington complied with demands including compensation for war damage.

“The Iran conflict remains a key source of concern for markets, with a lasting resolution seeming a distant prospect at this point,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.

Tehran insists on retaining control of the waterway through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas pass, and wants to charge tolls for passage, a demand U.S. officials have rejected.

Iran said Monday that its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz cannot be lifted through diplomacy. 

Asked in a press briefing about a possible resolution to the situation in the strategic waterway, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said: “Diplomacy is certainly part of our struggle to safeguard our national interests. But when dealing with a side that insists on the use of force, a maritime blockade is not a diplomatic action that we can lift through diplomacy.”

“Certainly, you have to use authority and military power, along with diplomacy, to prevent the United States’ aggression, and that is what is being done,” he added.

Iran and Oman are engaged in negotiations over the strait’s future, but Baghaei said it will not reopen until the U.S. lifts its blockade of Iran’s ports.

Iran said Monday Ukraine must “certainly compensate us” for an attack on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea last month, and that it has “not been convinced” the strike was accidental.

After the attack, which killed one sailor, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he didn’t want to open a “new front,” but that Iran had “already attacked us,” referring to Tehran supplying Russia with attack drones.

Ukraine later said the strike had been a mistake.

“We still believe that we have not been convinced by the Ukrainian side’s claim that this action was unintentional,” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Monday. “We heard what they had to say, but given the admission by senior Ukrainian officials that such an attack took place, they must certainly compensate us.”

“Naturally, if they do not compensate us, we will seek compensation ourselves,” he added.

Iranian high-level officials will only travel to mediator Pakistan under the “appropriate conditions,” the country’s foreign ministry spokesperson said Monday.

In recent days, multiple Iranian officials, including the minister of economic affairs and the minister of the interior, have visited Pakistan, which has been playing a mediating role between the U.S. and Iran throughout their conflict, Esmail Baghaei said Monday.

Iran has also received an invitation for Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf to visit, he said, “and whenever the appropriate conditions exist, the visit will take place.”

“The main focus is bilateral relations,” he added, without giving further detail on what could be discussed.

Iran says that the joint defense agreement signed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey last week “is a sign of a change in the perception of countries in the region” towards the United States.

Middle Eastern countries “have realized that security is not a commodity that can be purchased from false brokers of security,” foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said at his weekly press conference Monday.

“Countries in the region cannot rely on the claim of security provided by the US as in the past,” he said.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Monday the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is dependent on the U.S. ending its blockade on Iran.

In his weekly press briefing, Baghaei gave an update on the ongoing talks with Oman regarding the future administration of the vital waterway.

The spokesperson reiterated that while the discussions with Muscat will determine the future route for shipping traffic to transit, the Strait will not reopen until the U.S. lifts its blockade on Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told journalists on Sunday that Tehran is not engaged in any negotiations with the United States.

“Yes, there is an exchange of messages through intermediaries, but this is not called negotiations,” he said.

Araghchi said there was “no possibility” of resuming negotiations until the U.S. “compensates” for its violations of the memorandum of understanding.

President Trump said on Sunday that the U.S. is “low-keying” negotiations with Iran and signaled a willingness to allow economic pressure to mount on the Islamic Republic.

“We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” Mr. Trump told Axios during a phone interview.

He said Iran is in “very bad shape” and that the U.S. blockade on the Strait of Hormuz has exacerbated the country’s economy.

“It will work out. It always works out. It’s like a chess game,” Mr. Trump said.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen attacked the government-held port city of Mocha late Sunday night. It was the second attack on the Red Sea coast city in less than 24 hours.

A Houthi military source told the Houthi-controlled Al-Masirah TV that the attack targeted weapons depots and Saudi troop concentrations.

A statement from the Yemeni Armed Forces posted on X said residential neighborhoods were targeted by ballistic missiles and drones in the attack, and that air defense systems managed to intercept some of the drones.

Drones and missiles were also used during the earlier attack on Sunday. The Yemeni government-allied National Resistance Forces said at least seven people – four troops and three civilians – were killed and 15 civilians were injured in that strike.

Fayed al-Noman, the information ministry’s assistant undersecretary, said the attack severely damaged port buildings and piers as well as commercial goods and food supplies. The military later said missiles landed in several areas, including near a television station.

Mocha is a main port under Yemen’s internationally recognized government and has been renovated to handle shipping that avoids the Houthi-held port of Hodeida.

The Houthis said they targeted military forces and warehouses.

Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesperson, said they also targeted an Aramco refinery in the Saudi city of Jazan with a drone in response to Saudi drones breaching Yemen’s airspace over Hajjah and Saada provinces.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected a U.S.-backed Gaza peace plan and vowed there would be no military withdrawal until Hamas is “genuinely” disarmed.

On Sunday, after more than a week of gradually escalating criticism of the plan, Netanyahu explicitly opposed it as he faced pushback from his right-wing base ahead of elections.

“Israel rejects the 15-point document,” he said in a cabinet meeting, adding that the military “will not make any withdrawal until Hamas is truly disarmed and will continue to thwart threats against our forces and citizens.”

Iran’s politburo-like body known as the Supreme National Security Council said the Strait of Hormuz will not open until the United States “corrects its behavior,” issuing new demands that could shake up talks on a deal to manage the waterway and traffic on it.

Iran’s state broadcaster published the statement by the council’s secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who is also a commander in the powerful Revolutionary Guard.

The U.S. must never threaten Iran again, the statement said, and must permanently end the war with Iran and its armed allies in the region. The U.S. must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area. It also must “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and “unconditionally” release frozen assets.