BEIRUT/ WASHINGTON/MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday, urging an immediate end to hostilities in the Middle East, the Kremlin said.
During the phone call, Putin expressed condolences over the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, members of his family, representatives of the country’s military and political leadership, as well as the numerous civilian casualties as a result of the U.S.-Israeli armed aggression against Iran, Xinhua reported.
Putin reaffirmed Russia’s principled position that hostilities should cease immediately and that the use of force to resolve issues on Iran and across the Middle East must be abandoned, calling for a swift return to political and diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, according to the Kremlin.
Putin also noted that he has been in constant contact with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries regarding the situation.
For his part, Pezeshkian thanked Russia for its solidarity with the Iranian people in defending the sovereignty and independence of their homeland and briefed Putin in detail on the developments in the current phase of the conflict.
The two sides agreed to continue contacts through various channels, the Kremlin said.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday that “some countries have begun mediation efforts”, as US President Donald Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender”.
The Iranian president’s statement came as an Indonesian official said President Prabowo Subianto’s offer to mediate in the Iran conflict has backing from countries including Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
While Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar spoke Friday evening with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. “The DPM/FM expressed concern over the evolving regional situation. The two agreed to remain in touch on the developments,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on X: “Some countries have begun mediation efforts.” However, he did not identify the countries or provide further details. “Let’s be clear: we are committed to lasting peace in the region, but we have not the slightest hesitation in defending the dignity and authority of our country,” he added.
President Trump said, “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”. Trump made the remarks on social media just hours after Iran’s president announced that unspecified countries had begun mediation efforts, one of the first signals of any diplomatic initiative to end the conflict. “After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
Crude prices surged higher Friday as oil fields in Iraq came under attack and US Donald Trump demanded Iran´s unconditional surrender, while stocks slumped after data showed a surprise drop in jobs in the United States. The international benchmark oil contract, Brent North Sea crude, surged more than six percent to hit $91.89 per barrel.
President Trump said Thursday it would be a “waste of time” currently to consider sending US ground troops into Iran, NBC News reported, dismissing the Iranian foreign minister´s warning that such a move would spell disaster for invaders.
On the ground, Israel pursued a major expansion of the war in Lebanon, pounding the capital Beirut on Friday after ordering an unprecedented evacuation of the entire southern suburbs of the city. It also launched a new wave of attacks on Iran, saying 50 of its warplanes had struck a bunker still being used by Iran’s leadership beneath Khamenei’s destroyed Tehran compound.
About 300,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon in the past four days, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Inside Israel, explosions could be heard as Israeli defences activated to shoot down incoming Iranian fire. The UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia all reported fresh drone and missile attacks.
The Israeli military says it has destroyed 80 per cent of Iran’s air-defence systems in the first week of the campaign and disabled more than 60 per cent of its missile launchers.
Russia is providing Iran with information that includes locations of US warships and aircraft in the Middle East after Iran’s ability to locate U.S. forces was degraded, the Washington Post reported, citing three officials familiar with the intelligence. Russian missions in the US did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report. Meanwhile, sources said the Trump administration was set to discuss accelerating weapons production with defence contractors as Iran and other recent operations drew down supplies.
Meanwhile, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s offer to mediate in the Iran conflict has backing from countries including Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, an official said.
Prabowo and leaders of various Muslim-majority nations are aligned in seeking to prevent conflict in the Middle East from escalating, Nusron Wahid, Indonesia’s agrarian affairs minister, said Thursday after a meeting between the president and local Islamic leaders, Bloomberg reported.
“The president wants to meet with Iran,” Wahid, also a senior member of Nahdlatul Ulama, one of the country’s largest Muslim organizations, told reporters. “He has received support from several Middle Eastern countries, including Pakistan and the UAE.”
The comments came after Prabowo hosted a Ramadan dinner at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta where he spoke for more than three hours while outlining his views on conflict in the Middle East.
Prabowo also revealed that Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was willing to join him in visiting Tehran, according to Jimly Asshiddiqie, chairman of the advisory council of the Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals Association.
Sharif said in a post on X that he had had a productive call with Prabowo Thursday and agreed on the “urgent need for restraint and renewed diplomacy to prevent further escalation.”
Iran´s Revolutionary Guards said Friday they had targeted a US base in the UAE that they alleged had been used as a launchpad for a strike on a school.
According to Iranian authorities, a strike had hit a girls´ elementary school on Saturday in Minab county in the south of the country, killing more than 150 people including students.
Neither Israel nor the United States has claimed responsibility for the reported attack, which was close to sites controlled by Revolutionary Guards.
The Pentagon has confirmed it is investigating, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the US would “not deliberately target a school.”
An investigation by The New York Times newspaper concluded Thursday that the US military was the “most likely to have carried out the strike”.
The United Nations rights chief called Friday for answers after a deadly strike on an Iranian elementary school, as a media investigation concluded the United States was most likely responsible.
The Iraqi government and the autonomous Kurdistan region said Friday that Iraq must not be a launchpad for attacks against neighbouring countries, following reports that militants might attempt to cross into Iran.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Kurdistan´s regional president Nechirvan Barzani agreed in a phone call “that Iraqi territory must not be used as a launching point for attacks against neighbouring countries”, the premier´s media office said.
Tehran threatened Friday to target “all the facilities” of Iraq´s autonomous region if exiled Kurdish Iranian militants were allowed to enter Iran.
An Iranian warship has docked in the southwest Indian port of Kochi, a government source in New Delhi said Friday, after a US submarine sank another Iranian frigate and a third docked in Sri Lanka.
“IRIS Lavan... docked at Kochi on March 4. In this context, its crew of 183 are currently accommodated at naval facilities in Kochi,” the source said.
Like the IRIS Dena, the Iranian warship sunk by a US submarine Wednesday off the coast of Sri Lanka, IRIS Lavan had also been part of a naval fleet review off India´s port city of Visakhapatnam.
While Sri Lanka on Friday denounced the toll of the Mideast fighting, as the nation opened its arms to over 200 Iranian sailors who sought help after a deadly torpedo strike on another of Iran´s ships.
The crew were brought ashore Thursday and were being accommodated at a military camp near the capital Colombo and their ship, IRIS Bushehr, was under Sri Lankan control.
The vessel reported engine trouble and sought port entry after another Iranian vessel, IRIS Dena, was hit by a US torpedo off Sri Lanka´s southern coast on Wednesday.
Planet Labs PBC, a leading provider of high resolution images taken from space, said Friday it would hold back for 96 hours images of Gulf states targeted by Iranian drone attacks.
Israeli air strikes battered Lebanon on Friday, sending the death toll since Monday up to at least 217, according to Lebanese authorities, as the premier warned “a humanitarian disaster is looming”.
Israel´s military said a projectile fired at its territory on Friday wounded eight soldiers near the Lebanese border.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday the Middle East war must not lead to the collapse of the Iranian state, warning of the impact this would have on migration to Europe.
“An endless war is not in our interest. The same applies to a collapse of Iranian statehood or proxy conflicts fought on Iranian soil,” he said in a statement.
UNHCR said the war—which began on Saturday when Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran and has spread across the region since—had already caused large numbers of people to flee their homes.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Berlin would provide 100 million euros ($116 million) in humanitarian aid for Lebanon.
Israel´s military Friday said that Iran had launched cluster bombs “multiple times” since the start of the war that began with a US-Israeli attack on the Islamic republic last week.
Israel´s military said Friday it had identified “simultaneous and coordinated” missile launches by Iran and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah aimed at overwhelming Israeli air defences.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Friday that “loyal cooperation” should prevail over “confrontation” in relations with the United States after tensions over Madrid´s opposition to Washington´s use of its bases against Iran.
Relations should take place “with respect, in a spirit of loyal cooperation and on an equal footing”, he added during a news conference with Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro in the southern Spanish city of Huelva.
Sanchez again criticised the strikes by the United States and Israel against Iran, calling them an “extraordinary mistake” and “not in accordance with international law”.
Drones hit an airport and oil facilities in southern Iraq on Friday, while in the north strikes and explosions mainly targeted Iranian militants.
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was not struck by drones, a US defense official said Friday, after Iranian state TV reported a strike on the massive warship.
Greece will deploy a Patriot missile battery and two F-16 jets in the north of the country to help defend neighbouring Bulgaria as the Middle East war flares, Defence Minister Nikos Dendias said Friday.
The son of the late shah on Friday condemned Iran´s attacks on its neighbors and said in future Tehran would be “true partners” of countries in the region.
Reza Pahlavi, who has positioned himself as an alternative if the Islamic republic falls, said in a post on X that Iran´s missile attacks on Gulf neighbors “are unacceptable and we condemn them.”
Iran´s police chief Ahmad Radan said on Friday that officers had been authorised to shoot at suspected looters amid the war with Israel and the United States.
”Because we are in wartime conditions, I have issued orders to shoot at potential thieves,” Radan told state TV, adding that any thieves would be “swiftly neutralised”.
He also said that authorities had taken measures to maintain order online.
”We will not allow a group of paid agents to undermine the unity that the people achieved with the blood of thousands of martyrs by spreading agitation,” said Radan.
Qatar on Friday said its naval forces were inside buildings targeted by Iran in Bahrain overnight, though they were unharmed, after Manama reported attacks on residential buildings and a hotel.
“The State of Qatar strongly condemns the Iranian attack targeting buildings in various parts of the Kingdom of Bahrain, housing members of the Qatari Emiri Naval Forces participating in the Unified Maritime Operations Center of the Gulf Cooperation Council´s Unified Military Command,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Iranian drone strikes on Azerbaijan have raised fears that the Middle East war could spill into the Caucasus, as Baku, an ally of Israel, vows to respond.
Azerbaijan announced on Friday it was withdrawing diplomatic staff from Iran, a day after drones launched from Iranian territory targeted an airport and exploded near a school in the country´s Nakhichevan exclave, bordering Iran.
Four people were wounded.
Kuwait´s defence ministry said early on Friday that 67 army personnel have been injured since the beginning of Iran´s retaliation campaign—the highest number by far of any Gulf military.
Four men were arrested in Britain on Friday on suspicion of assisting Iran´s intelligence service by spying on locations and people linked to London´s Jewish community, police said.
The men, one Iranian national and three dual British-Iranians, were arrested by counterterrorism police at three separate addresses in the UK capital, the Metropolitan police said in a statement. Several blasts were heard over Israel´s commercial hub of Tel Aviv on Friday, AFP journalists reported, after the military said it had detected new missiles launched from Iran towards the country. “A short while ago, the IDF identified missiles launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel. Defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat,” the military said. Saudi Arabia said it destroyed three drones east of Riyadh on Friday, as Iran presses on with attacks across the Gulf. “Three drones were intercepted and destroyed east of the Riyadh region,” the Saudi defence ministry posted on X, quoting a spokesperson.
