Category: News

Washington, DC – Requests for legal support related to pro-Palestine advocacy remained high in the United States last year, as President Donald Trump threatened activists and universities with penalties.

In an annual report released on Tuesday, Palestine Legal, an organisation that “supports the movement for Palestinian freedom in the US”, said it received 1,131 queries for legal support in 2025.

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The figure is below the record 2,184 requests the group received in 2024, when pro-Palestine protests swept US campuses — and were regularly met with crackdowns from both school administrators and law enforcement.

Despite universities enacting new restrictions on protests across the country, the figures from 2025 show that pro-Palestine advocacy has persisted, according to Dima Khalidi, the executive director of Palestine Legal.

“Our 2025 year-end report shows that while universities have largely cowered and caved to coercive pressure from the Trump administration and its pro-Israel supporters, student activists for Palestinian and collective freedom remain a model of moral conviction and courage,” Khalidi said.

“Even when facing punitive consequences for speaking out, they are holding the line of dissent against injustice from the US to Palestine, because they understand the cost of surrender for all of us.”

Palestine Legal said that the “overwhelming majority of requests” for legal support came from university students and faculty in 2025, but a growing number, 122, were categorised as “immigration and border-related”.

The group received 851 requests from people or organisations targeted for their Palestine-related advocacy, as well as 280 more asking for legal guidance on conducting advocacy.

Despite the drop from 2024, the rate of complaints last year remained 300 percent higher than in 2022, the year before Israel began its genocidal war in Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Since then, at least 72,560 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.

Pressure campaigns

In 2024, Trump campaigned for a second term in the White House in part on a pledge to crack down on the pro-Palestinian protest movement, which sought to shine a light on the human rights abuses unfolding during the war.

He has framed such protests as anti-Semitic, and since his inauguration in 2025, he has led a campaign to penalise schools that played host to pro-Palestinian activism.

To date, five universities have struck deals with Trump after he threatened to withhold billions in federal funding. They include Columbia University, where a pro-Palestine encampment and resulting police crackdown drew international attention.

Columbia eventually reached a $200m settlement with the Trump administration and moved to make several policy changes it said were aimed at combatting anti-Semitism.

Rights groups have condemned such policies as conflating pro-Palestine advocacy with anti-Jewish sentiment. They also warn that Trump’s actions risk dampening free speech, a protected right under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

All told, nearly 80 of the students who took part in Columbia’s protests faced serious academic discipline, including expulsions, suspensions, and degree revocations, as of July 2025.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration used immigration enforcement to target pro-Palestine protesters and advocates, including scholars like Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi, Badar Khan Suri and Mahmoud Khalil.

To date, the deportation proceedings against Ozturk, who was in the US on a student visa, and Mahdawi, a US permanent resident detained at his citizenship hearing, have been abandoned.

Ozturk has since voluntarily returned to her native Turkiye after completing her doctoral studies at Tufts University.

The government is still proceeding with deportation efforts against Khan Suri, a Georgetown University researcher, and Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and permanent US resident.

Separately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided five homes connected to pro-Palestine activists at the University of Michigan in April 2025, sparking outrage. Federal authorities seized properties, but no arrests were made.

Legal victories

Despite the restrictive climate across the country, Palestine Legal hailed a string of legal victories in 2025 that upheld the right to pro-Palestinian protest.

Last August, for instance, a federal court dismissed a complaint that sought to penalise UNRWA USA, a non-profit that supports the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), under the Antiterrorism Act of 1990.

A separate lawsuit launched by Palestine Legal and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) charged that the University of Maryland had tread on the free speech rights of students by banning Students for Justice in Palestine (UMD SJP). That case resulted in a $100,000 settlement.

Meanwhile, federal judges have sided with Harvard University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in their challenges to the Trump administration’s defunding efforts.

“The fights that Palestine Legal and our partners have waged affirm that the Trump administration, universities, and Israel advocacy groups cannot, without consequence, run roughshod over growing demands to respect and protect Palestinian rights,” Palestine Legal said at the conclusion of its report.

“The developments throughout 2025 made crystal clear that if we allow our right to stand for Palestinian freedom to be trampled, all of our fundamental rights will be in jeopardy in the face of an authoritarian slide.”

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

US president says attacks will be held off until Iranian leaders ‘come up with a unified proposal’ to end war.

United States President Donald Trump has announced an extension to the ceasefire with Iran, saying that the US military will hold off its planned attack to allow more time for Tehran to put forward a proposal to end the war.

Trump said the move on Tuesday comes at the request of Pakistani mediators. The truce was set to expire on Wednesday.

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“I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other,” the US president said in a social media post.

Iran did not issue an immediate response to Trump’s statement. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said Tehran’s position “officially announced later”.

Hours before his social media post, Trump had said that he opposes extending the truce, warning Iran that time is running out.

The about-face came as Iranian officials condemned the US naval blockade on the country’s ports, putting their participation in the talks scheduled for Wednesday in Pakistan in doubt.

With the naval siege persisting, it is unclear whether the extension of the truce will be enough to bring Iran to the negotiating table in Islamabad.

Earlier on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called blockading Iranian ports an “act of war” and a violation of the ceasefire.

“Iran knows how to neutralize restrictions, how to defend its interests, and how to resist bullying,” Araghchi wrote on X.

Although the Iranian position, as expressed by several officials, has been to reject US threats and the naval siege, Trump suggested that disagreements within the leadership in Tehran is slowing down diplomatic efforts.

“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” the US president wrote.

More to come…

Two agents reportedly from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States have been killed in a car crash in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, leading to questions about their activities in the country.

On Tuesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed the matter from the podium at her morning news conference.

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She underscored that a probe is under way, as Mexican law requires that foreign agents receive federal authorisation to operate in the country.

US agents, in other words, cannot work directly with state-level Mexican officials without prior approval from Sheinbaum’s government. It is unclear whether that standard was followed in this incident.

Sheinbaum also acknowledged there were conflicting reports circulating in the aftermath of the crash about the nature of the agents’ presence in Mexico.

“A full investigation must be conducted by the Attorney General’s Office to determine whether the Constitution or the National Security Law was violated and to ensure that the authorities in the state of Chihuahua have access to all the accurate information,” she said.

Tensions have been high over the past year over the possibility that the US may seek to unilaterally launch ground operations in Mexico, thereby violating its sovereignty.

Since returning to the White House for a second term, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to take military action in Mexico to “eradicate” cartels and other criminal networks.

But Sheinbaum has rejected any such action as a red line not to be crossed in Mexican-US relations.

She reiterated that stance in Tuesday’s news conference, while welcoming collaborative efforts to combat crime.

“Joint ground operations are not permitted,” Sheinbaum said. “What has been agreed upon and stated very clearly with the United States government is that information is shared, and extensive work is conducted regarding joint intelligence.”

While she described her government’s relationship with the US as “excellent”, she did warn there could be consequences if a violation of Mexico’s laws were to be discovered during the course of the investigation.

“A formal diplomatic protest would indeed be issued, obviously, along with a request to ensure that such actions do not recur,” she said, adding that she has already been in contact with the US embassy.

For his part, US Ambassador Ronald Johnson expressed his condolences in a social media post after the crash.

“This tragedy is a solemn reminder of the risks faced by those Mexican and U.S. officials who are dedicated to protecting our communities,” Johnson wrote.

“It strengthens our resolve to continue their mission and advance our shared commitment to security and justice, to protect our people.”

It is unclear if and to what degree US agents were involved in unsanctioned ground operations in Mexico.

The Washington Post, which broke the story, initially indicated that the two agents were engaged in a counternarcotics operation, citing anonymous officials familiar with the matter.

Their car appears to have veered off the road and crashed in a ravine early on Sunday. The identities of the two US officials have yet to be confirmed.

Johnson described the two officials as “embassy personnel”. Media reports, however, have indicated they may have been members of the CIA.

Contradictory statements from authorities in Chihuahua also compounded the confusion about who was involved in the antidrug operation.

On Monday, the state attorney general’s office in Chihuahua issued a statement to insist that “only elements of the State Investigation Agency (AEI) and the Mexican army participated” in the sting.

Chihuahua’s Attorney General Cesar Jauregui Moreno has ruled out “the intervention of foreign elements”, the statement added.

According to state authorities, “instructors from the United States” were in Chihuahua “for other purposes, such as teaching how to handle drones”.

Separately, 40 officers from Chihuahua’s AEI and 40 from Mexico’s Secretariat of National Defence led a two-day operation that resulted in the discovery and seizure of a drug lab in the community of El Pinal, the attorney general’s office said.

The office insists that the Mexican law enforcement agents were simply giving their US counterparts a lift to the airport, nothing more, when the early-morning car crash occurred. The two US officials were expected to catch a flight on Sunday from the city of Chihuahua.

“We are very respectful of the sovereignty of this country and of the non-intervention of agents of any kind that are not nationals, directly in this type of operation,” Jauregui Moreno said in the statement.

Since Trump began his second term, the question of whether he might pursue policies that violate Mexican sovereignty has loomed over cross-border relations.

Last year, he labelled several Mexican cartels “foreign terrorist organisations”, seeming to tee up possible military action.

Privately, in a notice to Congress, Trump has described cartels and other criminal networks as “unlawful combatants” engaged in an “armed conflict” with the US.

To that end, he has carried out a campaign to bomb alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least 180 people.

He has also twice attacked Venezuela — once in December and a second time in early January — culminating in the abduction and imprisonment of the country’s then-leader, President Nicolas Maduro.

Trump and his officials have described the January 3 attack as a law enforcement operation. Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores currently await trial on drug trafficking and weapons charges in New York.

Legal experts, however, have described the attack as a violation of international law.

Shortly after Maduro’s removal, Trump renewed his threats that other countries could likewise face attacks on their soil. Mexico was among the targets he floated.

“We are going to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels. The cartels are running Mexico,” he told Fox News in January. “It’s very sad to watch.”

Sheinbaum has rejected that assertion, while increasing her government’s anti-cartel operations.

In February, for instance, the Mexican military led a high-profile operation that resulted in the shooting death of Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho”, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Kevin Warsh, United States President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, has addressed concerns about his independence pending his appointment to the bank amid fears that Trump could sway his decisions on monetary policy.

On Tuesday, Warsh — who served on the central bank’s Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011 — faced waves of criticism during a confirmation hearing of the Senate Banking Committee where Democrats voiced concerns about the Fed’s independence should he be appointed to lead the organisation.

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Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the committee, questioned Warsh’s independence, alleging that he would be a “sock puppet” for Trump, concerns he pushed back against and addressed in his opening testimony.

“I do not believe the operational independence of monetary policy is particularly threatened when elected officials — presidents, senators, or members of the House — state their views on interest rates,” Warsh said.

“Monetary policy independence is essential. Monetary policymakers must act in the nation’s interest . . . their decisions the product of analytic rigour, meaningful deliberation, and unclouded decision-making.”

Warsh, 56, also called for “regime change” at the US central bank, including a new approach for controlling inflation and a communications overhaul that may discourage his colleagues from saying too much about the direction of monetary policy.

Warsh blamed the central bank for an inflation surge after it slashed interest rates to nearly zero in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a move that continues to hurt US households.

Concerned by the implications of artificial intelligence for jobs – expected to increase productivity – and prices, he said he would move quickly to see if new data tools could provide better insight on inflation, and would also discourage policymakers from saying too much about where interest rates might be heading.

“What the Fed needs are reforms to its frameworks and reforms to its communications,” the former Fed governor said. “Too many Fed officials opine about where interest rates should be … That is quite unhelpful.”

Warsh has also long been an advocate for shrinking the Fed’s $6.7 trillion balance sheet. In the Tuesday hearing, he said any such plans would take time and must be publicly discussed well in advance.

Jai Kedia, a research fellow at the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Al Jazeera that there were many “encouraging” signs in Warsh’s candidacy.

“Warsh is presenting himself as a regime change candidate at a time when the Fed needs serious reform,” Kedia noted. “Particularly encouraging was his understanding of the negative effects of QE and his focus on reducing the balance sheet. He also correctly criticised mission creep and acknowledged that the Fed did better when it kept its focus on the dual mandate [of keeping inflation at 2 percent and increasing employment].”

Quantitative easing or QE is an unconventional monetary policy under which a central bank lowers interest rates, among other measures, to boost the economy, a step taken by central banks in several developed countries during the pandemic.

Warsh’s private investments, at well over $100m, are also under scrutiny. Among them are two holdings in the Juggernaut Fund LP, apparently part of his work advising for the Duquesne Family Office, the private investment firm of Stanley Druckenmiller.

Warsh’s nearly 70-page financial disclosure also showed that his other holdings include investments in Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the prediction trading platform Polymarket.

“I agreed to divest virtually all of my financial assets, the large majority of which will be divested” before taking office, Warsh said without giving any details.

 

 

Warsh noted that selling his holdings comes with challenges. He said that when that process is completed, he would have “virtually no financial assets” and “we’ll be sitting in something like cash”.

Warren, however, questioned him about the divestment plan. “Do we have any way to verify that, in fact, these sales will occur if we have no idea what’s in them?” she asked.

Political hurdles

The hearing quickly turned contentious, and the pace of Warsh’s confirmation process through the Senate remained in doubt.

He would not directly say that Trump lost the 2020 election – a statement of fact that Senator Warren said was a litmus test of Warsh’s independence from the Republican president who nominated him for the top Fed job.

Yet even amidst the focus on independence, Warsh needs 13 votes to clear the 24-member Senate Banking Committee.

North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis said he would vote against Trump’s nominee and join Democrats, which would create a 12–12 split. The committee has 13 Republican members and 11 Democrats.

Tillis said he would not vote for any Trump nominee until an investigation into current Fed Governor Jerome Powell, whose term ends May 15, is either concluded or called off. Last month, federal prosecutors said they found no evidence of wrongdoing. But Jeanine Pirro, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, has not indicated that the investigation will be dropped.

Tillis said on Tuesday that he would support Warsh’s nomination once the probe into Powell is dropped.

“Today’s confirmation hearing underscored that Warsh is aiming for independence with guardrails,” noted Selma Hepp, chief Economist of Cotality, a market analytics company. “He rejected being a political ‘sock puppet’ and argued the Fed protects its autonomy by ‘staying in its lane.’ He offered no pre-commitment on rates, while emphasising inflation discipline, a large balance sheet, and a desire for clearer Fed communication.”

Noel Dixon, senior macro strategist at State Street, said that with Warsh, the US would have a “dovish-leaning Fed”.

“When a senator asked him if he would lower rates to 1 percent – I guess Trump had indicated that he would like to have rates below 2 percent – Warsh didn’t really say no to that,” Dixon noted. “He didn’t say that it would increase prices. He kind of leaned on it and said there would be a lagged effect, and he was just very noncommittal to that. So it’s almost like – just reading between the lines – he’s giving himself space to maintain possible justification for rate cuts by the end of the year.”

Trump has continued to pressure the central bank.

On Tuesday, he said he would be “disappointed” if the Fed did not lower interest rates.

Tuesday’s remarks follow comments in December, when the US president said he would not appoint anyone to lead the central bank unless they agreed with him.

“The public needs to know whether Mr. Warsh will have the courage of his convictions or if he’s willing to compromise his independence and accommodate more Wall Street deregulation,” Graham Steele, an academic fellow at the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University, told Al Jazeera in an email.

Warsh has praised the administration for its push for increased bank deregulation. In a November 2025 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Warsh claimed that Trump’s “deregulatory agenda” is “the most significant since President Ronald Reagan’s”.

Ship, detained under US policy to stop all Tehran-linked vessels, is under sanctions for smuggling Iranian crude.

United States forces have detained an oil tanker in the Indian Ocean sanctioned for smuggling Iranian crude oil, the Pentagon says.

The M/T Tifani was boarded overnight, the US Department of Defense announced on Tuesday. The raid was carried out as a two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran was about to expire and a resumption of their talks was on a knife edge.

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“Overnight, US forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of the stateless sanctioned M/T Tifani without incident in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility,” the department posted on social media, referring to the US military’s Indo-Pacific Command.

The statement said the US is determined “to disrupt illicit networks and interdict sanctioned vessels providing material support to Iran – anywhere they operate”.

INDOPACOM oversees a broad region that includes the Pacific and Indian oceans. The exact location of the operation was not made clear.

An unnamed US defence official told The Associated Press news agency that the Tifani was captured in the Bay of Bengal between India and Southeast Asia and was carrying Iranian oil.

The US military will decide in the coming days what to do with the vessel, for instance, tow it back to the US or turn it over to another country, the official reportedly said.

Not a refuge

The Tifani is a Botswana-flagged tanker, according to the intelligence firm Vanguard Tech.

Its last signal was detected on Tuesday halfway between Sri Lanka and the Strait of Malacca, according to the maritime tracking website Marine Traffic. Its tracking signal indicated it was heading towards Singapore.

“International waters are not a refuge for sanctioned vessels,” the Pentagon said in its post, which included video footage showing helicopters hovering just above a large, bright orange tanker.

According to an AFP news agency report citing the energy intelligence firm Kpler, the vessel loaded about 2 million barrels of crude on Iran’s Kharg Island on April 5 and passed through the Strait of Hormuz on April 9 .

The Tifani has in recent years carried out numerous ship-to-ship oil transfers off Singapore and Malaysia and made multiple round trips between that area and destinations that include Iran and China.

 

US President Donald Trump has promised to maintain a blockade on Iran “until there is a deal” to end the war.

On Monday, however, maritime data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence said “at least 26 ships from Iran’s ghost fleet [have] circumvented the US blockade” since it was imposed last week.

Doubts remained on Tuesday regarding whether a second round of negotiations between Tehran and Washington would take place in Pakistan. An initial round ended on April 12 without a breakthrough.

Pakistan’s attempts to broker the talks were becoming more urgent throughout Tuesday as the expiration of the already tenuous ceasefire between Washington and Tehran approached.

A spokesperson for Tehran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told state television on Tuesday that Iran had still ⁠to decide whether to attend as he described the boarding of the tanker as well as the earlier seizure of a cargo ship, as “piracy at sea and state terrorism”.

The US Navy attacked and seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship on Sunday that it said had tried to evade its blockade.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman declared that these actions called into question Washington’s seriousness in negotiating.

Trump, meanwhile, declared that the US military is “raring to go” if an agreement is not reached.

Pete Hegseth says the decision is based on the principle of ‘medical autonomy’ and criticises the mandate as ‘overreaching’.

United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that the flu vaccine will no longer be obligatory for members of the country’s military, the latest step under President Donald Trump to shift vaccine policy in the federal government.

Hegseth said in a video shared on social media on Tuesday that the decision was based on principles of “medical autonomy” and religious freedom.

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“We’re seizing this moment to discard any absurd, overreaching mandates that only weaken our warfighting capabilities. In this case, this includes the universal flu vaccine and the mandate behind it,” said Hegseth.

“The notion that a flu vaccine must be mandatory for every service member, everywhere, in every circumstance at all times is just overly broad and not rational.”

The Trump administration has framed vaccine refusal as a matter of personal moral and religious principle, rolling back some policies meant to safeguard against preventable diseases.

Hegseth’s directive allows various military services to request that the mandate be kept in place, giving them a window of 15 days to do so.

The announcement comes after what health officials described as a particularly severe flu season when infections surged in the US. Public health experts have recommended that everyone aged six months or older get an annual flu vaccine.

The second Trump administration has reflected some of the backlash to public health guidelines and mandates that were implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hegseth himself has called that period an “era of betrayal” for the country’s armed forces. More than 8,400 members of the military were ejected for failure to abide by a 2021 mandate to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Trump administration has also rolled back vaccine recommendations in other areas, announcing earlier this year that it would not recommend flu shots and other forms of vaccines for all children. A lawsuit was filed challenging that effort, and the policy was temporarily blocked by a federal judge as the legal challenge plays out.

US president says Iran has ‘no choice’ but to show up to the negotiations in Pakistan and accept a ‘great’ deal.

United States President Donald Trump says he opposes extending a ceasefire with Iran that will expire by the end of Wednesday to allow more time for negotiations.

Trump’s comment on Tuesday during an interview with CNBC raised the stakes for the round of talks set to take place this week in Pakistan, suggesting that the war could reignite if the parties fail to reach a deal.

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Iran has not publicly committed to attending the negotiations as tensions over Tehran’s closure of the Hormuz Strait and the US blockade on Iranian ports intensify.

Asked by CNBC whether he would back prolonging the truce to buy more time for the talks to take place, Trump said, “Well, I don’t want to do that.”

The president said Iranian representatives will attend the talks, emphasising that the negotiators don’t have much time to reach an agreement.

“Iran can get themselves on a very good footing if they make a deal. They can make themselves into a strong nation again,” Trump said.

Despite the uncertainty over the talks, Trump predicted that Washington and Tehran would reach a “great deal”.

“I think they have no choice,” he said of the Iranians. “We’ve taken out their navy. We’ve taken out their air force. We’ve taken out their leaders.”

Trump, who has threatened to bomb Iran’s bridges and power and water stations, said the US military is “totally loaded up” to resume the war.

“It’s not my choice, but it would also hurt them. It would hurt them militarily,” he said of his threat to target civilian infrastructure in Iran. “They use the bridges for their weapons, for their missile movements.”

Iran has continued to voice defiance against Trump’s rhetoric, saying it will not negotiate under threat.

While the two-week ceasefire has succeeded in halting the fighting, it has been rocked by Israel’s assault on Lebanon and disagreements over the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has insisted that Lebanon was part of the truce and kept the strait closed to pressure an end to the Israeli bombardment of the country.

Trump, in turn, ordered his own blockade of the waterway with the US military laying a naval siege on ships linked to Iran.

When a ceasefire was announced in Lebanon, Iran announced a reopening of the strait, but Trump said the US blockade would persist. So less than 24 hours later, Tehran said it was closing the strait again.

US forces have seized at least one Iranian-flagged vessel as part of the blockade in what Tehran decried as an act of piracy.

“The United States will bear full responsibility for the consequences of the dangerous escalation, and Iran will use all available means to defend its sovereignty and protect the rights of its citizens,” Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent oil prices around the world soaring. The cost of petrol for US consumers has risen by more than 25 percent since the start of the war.

Trump stressed in his interview with CNBC that the US is “totally” in control of the strategic waterway.

Iran’s team is preparing for the FIFA World Cup but may not travel for the tournament, Sport Minister Donyamali says.

Iran’s football team is preparing for the World Cup, but a final decision on its participation in the tournament will be taken by the government, the country’s sport minister says.

“If the safety of the national team’s players in the United States is ensured, we will travel to the World Cup,” Iran’s Sports and Youth Minister Ahmad Donyamali was quoted as saying by Iran’s Tasnim news agency on Thursday.

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“The decision will be made by the government and the Supreme National Security Council,” he added.

Team Melli are scheduled to play all their World Cup games in the US, one of the three host nations alongside Canada and Mexico, but their participation has been uncertain since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28.

The doubts surrounding Iran’s role in the tournament remain as a fragile Pakistan-mediated ceasefire between Tehran and Washington nears its deadline on Thursday.

Donyamali, speaking to Iranian media, insisted that the team will continue to train for the World Cup regardless of the ongoing geopolitical tensions.

“The national team may not go to the World Cup, but if we are going to participate, we must be ready,” he said.

Iran’s Football Federation (FFIRI) asked FIFA to move its games out of the US last month, but the sport’s governing body said all World Cup fixtures will go ahead as scheduled, dismissing the possibility of Mexico hosting the Iranian team, citing logistical impediments.

On Wednesday, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said he was “confident” that Iran would play in the World Cup despite US President Donald Trump’s earlier comments saying “it would not be appropriate” for them to participate.

“The Iran National Soccer Team is welcome to the World Cup, but I really don’t believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety,” Trump wrote in a social media post last month.

The FIFA chief, who has a close relationship with President Trump, said, “Iran has to come” to the tournament despite the fragile ceasefire nearing its deadline on April 22.

“We hope that by then, of course, the situation will be a peaceful situation,” Infantino said of the US-Israeli war on Iran. “As I said, that would definitely help. But Iran has to come. Of course, they represent their people. They have qualified. The players want to play.”

Iranian Minister Donyamali has repeatedly linked Iran’s participation with a guarantee for the players’ safety, as well as the ongoing war. He told local media that the FFIRI will set up a training camp for the squad in the event the team is given a go-ahead by the government.

“We have to be ready, but maybe the decision is not to go, and if we are going to go, we have to be ready to have a strong presence,” he said.

“Our duty from a professional point of view is to carry out the work and preparation.”

The Iranian squad’s World Cup training camp will commence from May 10 and will last for over a week, he confirmed.

Iran played two international friendlies in Turkiye last month under tight security and limited media access.

Team Melli are slated to open against New Zealand on June 15, then face Belgium on June 21, with both matches ⁠⁠in Los Angeles. On June 26, Iran play against Egypt ⁠⁠in Seattle.

Should they advance to the knockouts, the rest of Iran’s games would also be held in the US.

Islamabad, Pakistan – As United States Vice President JD Vance prepares to fly to Islamabad, Pakistan is racing against time and the odds to try to convince Tehran to join talks with the US aimed at ending their war, now in its eighth week.

But while Pakistani officials close to the mediation efforts remain cautiously hopeful that Iran might send a negotiating team for the talks by Wednesday, a series of escalatory steps taken by the US over the past 48 hours had by Tuesday evening injected a dose of scepticism into Islamabad’s peacemaking efforts.

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Iran continues to publicly insist that it has no plans to return to the negotiating table, even as Pakistan and other mediators work behind the scenes to bring Tehran back into the room before a two-week ceasefire expires on Wednesday evening US time — early Thursday morning in the Middle East.

At least nine US aircraft have landed in Pakistan over the past three days, bringing personnel and equipment to be used by the Vance-led negotiating team.

Vance is expected to depart from the US on Tuesday evening Pakistan time — morning in the US — and arrive in Islamabad late morning on Wednesday. US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected to join Vance. The three officials had led the US delegation during the first round of direct talks with Iran in Islamabad on April 11.

But it is unclear who they are coming to meet.

Earlier on Tuesday, Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam, posted on social media, paraphrasing Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, that it was “a truth universally acknowledged” that “a single country in possession of a large civilisation will not negotiate under threat and force”, calling it “a substantial, Islamic and theological principle”.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said it had no plans to re-engage diplomatically with Washington for now. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and the head of its negotiating team, was more direct. In a post on X early on Tuesday, he accused Trump of seeking to turn the negotiating table “into a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering”.

“We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats,” Ghalibaf wrote, adding that Iran had “prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield” over the previous two weeks.

Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, said separately that Tehran must “maintain 100% readiness” given a “strong possibility” of further US attacks.

Rising tensions at sea

These public statements follow the latest flashpoint between the two rivals, who have been at war since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28.

On Sunday, US naval forces fired on the Iranian-flagged cargo ship Touska in the Gulf of Oman and boarded it after it attempted to pass through a naval blockade that the US has enforced against Iran-linked ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz since April 13. Tehran called the incident a ceasefire violation and demanded the immediate release of the ship, its crew members and their families.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry described the seizure as “extremely dangerous” and “criminal”, warning that Tehran “will use all its capacities” to defend its national interests.

On Tuesday, the US announced that its forces had also boarded a second ship, this time in the Asia Pacific. The ship, cargo vessel M/T Tifani, was already under US sanctions for carrying Iranian oil.

For Javad Heiran-Nia, a researcher specialising in Iranian affairs, the Touska incident may nonetheless offer a narrow opening.

“The release of the ship’s crew could be a green light for Iran to soften its position on returning to talks,” he told Al Jazeera.

Umer Karim, an associate fellow at the Riyadh-based King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, said the principal signal Iran was seeking was an end to the US blockade, or at least a clear intent to relax it.

He pointed to Iran’s conduct during the first round. Tehran had initially conditioned its participation on a ceasefire in Lebanon, before entering talks without one.

“That shows they are pragmatic,” Karim told Al Jazeera.

Muhammad Khatibi, a political analyst based in Tehran, said Iran’s position had been consistent throughout, as Iran believes that as long as it cannot export its oil, it will not allow others in the region to do so either.

A tangible easing of the blockade, he said, did not need to be publicly announced, as it could take the form of reciprocal steps, “such as the US permitting a number of Iranian oil shipments to proceed, with Tehran responding in kind”.

“Iran does not seek to re-engage in renewed conflict,” he told Al Jazeera. “But from Tehran’s perspective, this is a war of survival, and it is prepared to fight with all available means until the very end.”

The IRGC factor

The statements from Tehran also reflect a domestic political dynamic underpinning Iran’s public posture, said analysts.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been pushing Iran’s negotiating team to adopt a firmer line, they said, conditioning any return to talks on a full end to the US naval blockade.

Heiran-Nia said the divide between the IRGC and the diplomatic team was evident. He cited instances over the weekend when ships attempting to pass through the strait were allegedly fired on by Iran. India summoned Iran’s ambassador in New Delhi to raise concerns about firing on two of its ships.

“The attack on tankers during the ceasefire demonstrates the IRGC’s dominance over the diplomatic team and its disregard for their positions,” he told Al Jazeera.

Yet Heiran-Nia said if a deal were reached, it would likely override internal opposition.

“If a deal is reached, it will likely have a sovereign character,” he said. “The establishment will impose its own narrative, and the IRGC will accept it.”

What Pakistan is working with

Trump has set firm public red lines. He has demanded Iran end uranium enrichment and surrender its existing stockpile of enriched uranium. He has said the US will not lift the Hormuz blockade until Tehran agrees to negotiate.

“They’re going to negotiate, and if they don’t, they’re going to see problems like they’ve never seen before,” he said in an interview on Monday.

The enrichment question remains the central fault line. During the first round of talks, US negotiators proposed a 20-year pause on Iranian enrichment. Iran countered with five years. Trump has publicly said he wants no enrichment and has refused to set a timeframe for this moratorium.

For Iran, Karim said, the Strait of Hormuz is not simply a bargaining chip.

Tehran is seeking to extract maximum advantage from that leverage before any deal is concluded, he said, because once an agreement is reached, “those cards could no longer be played”.

“Iran understands that it still has leverage,” Karim added, “and that it needs to be utilised to the maximum level in any negotiations.”

Heiran-Nia said Washington’s position on Hormuz was equally entrenched.

“The US wants to remove the Strait of Hormuz card from Iran’s hand,” he said. “Iran, on the other hand, wants not only to preserve it as a negotiating card but also to maintain it as a strategic asset.”

Trump’s messaging problem

Complicating Pakistan’s efforts is Trump’s public messaging around the talks.

His posts on Truth Social and remarks to reporters, in which he claimed Iran had agreed to provisions that sources said had not been finalised, including the handover of enriched uranium, caused visible strain in diplomatic efforts during the first round.

Iranian officials publicly rejected the assertions, while US media reported that some Trump administration officials privately acknowledged his comments had been detrimental, given Tehran’s deep mistrust of Washington.

Karim, however, said Trump’s messaging was “more a form of posturing than a structural obstacle to the talks”.

Heiran-Nia said how Islamabad frames the process will be critical, regardless of the outcome.

“Pakistan is the only actor that has military and security ties with both Washington and Tehran,” he said, adding that its role in shaping the narrative around any agreement, allowing both sides to claim success, would be “of critical importance”.

What comes next

A second round of talks, if they take place, is expected to begin on Wednesday.

Trump has extended the original deadline by 24 hours, saying the truce now ends “Wednesday evening Washington time”, which would be early morning Thursday in Islamabad, and described a further extension as “highly unlikely”. It was initially supposed to end on Tuesday evening in the US, or Wednesday morning in the Middle East.

Whether Iran’s delegation attends remains the central question.

State broadcaster Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting said on Tuesday that no Iranian diplomatic delegation, “be it a primary or secondary team, or an initial or follow-up mission”, had travelled to Islamabad.

An Iranian source, however, said there were strong indications that a delegation would still travel to Pakistan, adding that security considerations remained central to any decision.

Heiran-Nia said the consequences of failure in the planned talks would be stark.

“The alternative, return to war, while unable to establish any sustainable balance, promises devastating destruction,” he said.

Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to lead a team of United States negotiators in Islamabad on Tuesday for talks with Iran aimed at ending their war, even though Tehran is yet to confirm its participation in this latest round of negotiations.

Meanwhile, a fragile two-week ceasefire is poised to expire on Wednesday with no clarity on whether it will be extended amid a spike in tensions over the past two days.

The first round of US-Iran talks in Islamabad on April 11 ended without a breakthrough. Since then, the US has imposed a naval blockade on all Iran-linked ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has fired at ships trying to transit through the vital shipping route. And early on Monday, the US shot at and then seized an Iranian vessel trying to pass through the narrow waterway.

Tehran called the ship’s seizure “piracy” and has threatened retribution. It has refused to join talks under the shadow of threats. Trump has revived his warning that he would order the US military to blow up all bridges and power plants in Iran if it does not accept a deal on US terms.

Amid this uncertainty over the future of the talks and the truce, we break down the latest from both sides and four potential scenarios that could play out in the next few days:

What’s the latest from both sides?

Both the US and Iran have been exchanging threats as the ceasefire is due to expire in the coming hours.

The two-week ceasefire, announced by US President Donald Trump on April 7, should expire at 8pm Washington, DC, time on Tuesday (midnight GMT, 3:30am in Tehran and 5am in Islamabad on Wednesday). However, Trump has in recent comments indicated that he has already moved the deadline back by a day.

While Islamabad continues with its preparations to host multiday talks, there has been no confirmation yet from Iranian officials about whether they will attend.

The US president said he feels confident Iran will negotiate or it will “see problems like they’ve never seen before”.

Trump confirmed in a Truth Social post that the US delegation is planning to visit Islamabad on Tuesday. While accusing Iran of violating the ceasefire by firing at vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, Trump added: “We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”

Meanwhile, Iran maintained there will be no negotiations under the shadow of threats.

Mohammad Reza Mohseni Sani, who sits on the Iranian parliament’s National Security Commission, cast further doubt on the prospects of talks with the US.

He said in comments carried by Iran’s Mehr news agency that “negotiations are not acceptable” in “the current situation” accusing the US of being “overly demanding” and pursuing ulterior objectives for domestic benefit.

“Given the current conditions, recent aggressions and the history we have with the United States in previous negotiations, the next round of talks is, God willing, off the table,” he said.

Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group think tank, told Al Jazeera that the key hurdle before any second round of talks was “whether the US is willing to ease pressure enough to make diplomacy credible and whether Iran is willing to curb its leverage enough to keep talks alive”.

Scenario 1: Talks happen and achieve a temporary deal

Pakistan has been aiming to get the US and Iran to agree to multiple days of negotiations, sources close to the mediation efforts told Al Jazeera.

For the US, Vance is expected to be joined by Trump’s envoy and fellow real estate developer Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the same team that participated in the first round of talks. If the Iranians come, the parliament’s speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, is again expected to lead their delegation, which will also include Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Mediators in Islamabad are aiming to reach a “memorandum of understanding” between the US and Iran to buy time to achieve a final deal and extend the ceasefire.

“Success would not be a final deal. It would be an interim understanding that extends talks, stabilises the ceasefire and creates a framework for trading nuclear steps for sanctions relief,” Vaez said.

However, glaring differences exist in the demands and expectations from both sides, including over Tehran’s nuclear programme, control of the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions on Iran and its frozen assets.

“If the two sides do not change their stances, there cannot be a deal in Islamabad,” said Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the Chatham House think tank.

Scenario 2: Talks end without a breakthrough but with a ceasefire extension

For there to be any meaningful progress in the talks, “there needs to be compromises on both sides because at the moment there is too much of a gap to reach an agreement,” Tabrizi told Al Jazeera.

“Unless that changes, it’s unlikely that we will see a deal,” she said.

Trump has doubled down in recent days on his insistence that Iran stop all uranium enrichment and hand over its current stockpile of enriched uranium. Iran has rejected those demands.

“The US is not learning its lessons from experience,” Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday. “And this will never lead to good results.”

Still, Tabrizi said, even in the absence of a breakthrough in a second round of talks, the two sides may agree to “some sort of temporary extension of the ceasefire”, which would give diplomacy another chance.

Scenario 3: No talks but the ceasefire is extended

Trump told Bloomberg News on Monday that he considers the ceasefire over “Wednesday evening Washington time” and said it was “highly unlikely” that he would extend it if no deal is reached.

Still, a last-minute post on his Truth Social platform extending the ceasefire would not necessarily be surprising, analysts said – even if Iran refuses to show up to the talks in Islamabad.

“It [would be] a fragile pause, not a durable ceasefire,” Vaez said. “As long as maritime pressure and mutual accusations continue, the risk of miscalculation remains very high.”

“Without a diplomatic framework, it would be buying time, not building stability,” he added.

Tabrizi agreed. Already, though, the war has fundamentally changed the US-Iran equation, she said.

“President Trump is arguing that regime change has happened because the figures that they are dealing with are different,” Tabrizi said. “Iran probably doesn’t seem to see the US as an existential threat like before the fighting started.”

Scenario 4: Talks fail, and the ceasefire expires

Trump’s repeated threats to restart the bombing of Iran in the absence of a deal also open up a fourth scenario: If Iranian negotiators do not travel to Islamabad for the talks, that threat will be tested.

“Then lots of bombs start going off,” Trump said to PBS News on Monday when asked about what follows if the ceasefire expires. Trump added that Iran was “supposed to be there” for the negotiations. “We’ll see whether or not it’s there. If they’re not there, that’s fine too,” he said.

Ghalibaf said on Tuesday that Trump “seeks to turn this negotiating table, in his own imagination, into a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering”.

“We have prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield,” he added, suggesting that Tehran was prepared militarily for a resumption of the fighting.

But if the ceasefire collapses, “the next round is likely to get very ugly very quickly,” Vaez warned. “The US will likely target critical infrastructure in Iran, which in turn will torch the rest of the region.”