Iran-US war latest: Trump says Witkoff and Kushner’s trip to Pakistan cancelled as hopes for peace talks fade

President Donald Trump said the US Navy is clearing Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz.

Sweeping for underwater explosives could take months despite a tenuous ceasefire between the US and Iran, experts say.

Any future claims that the US cleared the waterway where 20 per cent of the world’s oil typically passes might fail to convince commercial freighters and their insurers that it is finally safe.

“You don’t even have to have lain mines — you just have to make people believe that you’ve laid mines,” said Emma Salisbury, a scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s National Security Program.

“And even if the US sweeps the strait and says everything’s clear, all the Iranians have to do is say, ‘Well, actually, you haven’t found them all yet,”‘ said Salisbury, who is also a fellow at the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre.

“There’s only so much the US can do to give that confidence back to commercial shipping.”

Donald Trump has cancelled the US negotiators’ trip to Pakistan for Iran talks.

In a post on Truth Social he said there would have been “too much time wasted on travelling”.

“We have all the cards,” he added, “they have none”.

“If they want to talk, all they have to do is call.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has he is “yet to see if the US is truly serious about diplomacy,” following his visit to Pakistan.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has laid out Tehran’s demands for ending the war with the US during talks in Islamabad, according to a statement released on Saturday.

Meeting with head of Pakistan’s armed forces, Asim Munir, Araghchi said the pair discussed “the latest developments related to the ceasefire” and Tehran’s “views and considerations”. He expressed a willingness to continue mediation efforts.

However, following his “fruitful” visit he said questioned whether the intensions of the US in a post on X.

He wrote: “Very fruitful visit to Pakistan, whose good offices and brotherly efforts to bring back peace to our region we very much value. Shared Iran’s position concerning workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran. Have yet to see if the U.S. is truly serious about diplomacy.”

The U.S. has burned through billions of dollars’ worth of its critical weapons stockpile in the war with Iran, according to a report. ​

The conflict, which began on February 28, has seen the Pentagon use more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles, and each costs more than $4 million.

The military has also used up around 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles stockpiled for a potential war with China, according to congressional officials and internal Defense Department estimates obtained by the New York Times.​ More than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles have been fired, too, which is around 10 times the amount currently bought by the U.S. Military each year.

US President Donald Trump has cancelled Witkoff and Kushner’s trip to Pakistan to meet with the Iranians, Fox News White House Correspondent Aishah Hasnie has reported.

She said in a post on X Trump ​told ‌Fox ⁠News about the ⁠trip’s cancellation during a phone call.

A Lebanese journalist who was wounded in an Israeli airstrike that killed her colleague this week described hours of agony as they waited for help to arrive, in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday.

Zeinab Faraj, a young freelance photographer and video journalist, frequently moved on assignment with Amal Khalil, a longtime correspondent in southern Lebanon with the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.

The two were driving behind a relative of Faraj in the village of al-Tiri, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the border with Israel on Wednesday. That was five days after a fragile truce was implemented between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, planning to cover the post-ceasefire situation in the area.

It is the first time that the US has had three aircraft carriers in the Middle East since 2003, the year America invaded Iraq.

Iran’s delegation has left Pakistan, two Pakistani government sources have told Reuters.

Tehran had denied direct talks with Washington would take place in Islamabad and that Iran’s position would be communicated to Pakistan’s mediators instead.