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US President Donald Trump on Friday informed top US lawmakers that the conflict between the US and Iran had ceased with the April ceasefire. The president’s letters to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley were sent after a 60-day deadline for securing congressional approval for the war had passed. Follow our liveblog for all the latest updates.
Germany’s defense minister stated that the withdrawal of US troops from Germany had been anticipated and that Europe needed to do more to ensure its own security.
“The withdrawal of US troops from Europe and also from Germany was to be expected,” Boris Pistorius said in a statement sent to AFP by his ministry. “We Europeans must take greater responsibility for our security,” he added.
The Pentagon confirmed Friday that the US had ordered the withdrawal of approximately 5,000 troops from Germany over the next year.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi was hospitalized in Iran following a “catastrophic deterioration of her health,” including a “cardiac crisis,” according to a foundation run by her family.
The secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awarded Mohammadi the 2023 prize, expressed concern on Thursday that the condition of the Iranian human rights activist was worsening after she had suffered a heart attack in prison.
Mohammadi, in her 50s, won the prize while incarcerated for her campaign to advance women’s rights and abolish the death penalty in Iran.
The activist “was urgently transferred to a hospital in Zanjan today following a catastrophic deterioration of her health, including two episodes of complete loss of consciousness and a severe cardiac crisis,” the Narges Mohammadi Foundation stated on its website on Friday.
“This transfer was an unavoidable necessity after prison doctors determined her condition could not be managed on-site, despite standing medical recommendations that she be treated by her specialized team in Tehran.”
Iran executed two men accused of spying for Israel, including one accused of gathering intelligence near the Natanz nuclear site in central Isfahan province, Iranian media reported.
They quoted the judiciary as stating that Yaghoub Karimpour and Nasser Bakarzadeh were hanged after being found guilty of intelligence cooperation with Israel and its spy agency, Mossad.
They reported that Karimpour passed sensitive information to a Mossad officer, while Bakarzadeh was accused of collecting details on government and religious figures and key sites, including in the Natanz area.
An Iranian military official said that a renewed conflict with the United States was “likely,” as peace talks remain stalled and President Donald Trump criticized Iran’s latest proposal in negotiations.
“A renewed conflict between Iran and the United States is likely, and evidence has shown that the United States is not committed to any promises or agreements,” Mohammad Jafar Asadi of the military’s central command center, Khatam al-Anbiya, was quoted as saying by Iran’s Fars news agency.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the withdrawal of about 5,000 troops from Germany within the next year, the Pentagon said on Friday.
Trump has renewed criticism of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said Monday that Iran was “humiliating” Washington at the negotiating table. Trump stated that Merz “thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”
On Wednesday, the American leader said Washington was “studying and reviewing the possible reduction” of US troops in Germany, and that he would decide in a “short period of time”.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a Friday statement that “We expect the withdrawal to be completed over the next six to twelve months.”
US President Donald Trump told top US lawmakers on Friday that hostilities in Iran had ended, after coming under pressure from Congress to seek authorization for the conflict as it headed into its third month.
“There has been no exchange of fire between United States Forces and Iran since April 7, 2026. The hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated,” he wrote in letters to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley.
US President Donald Trump said Friday he was “not satisfied” with a new Iranian negotiating proposal, as peace talks remain frozen despite a weeks-long ceasefire.
Iran delivered the draft to mediator Pakistan on Thursday evening, the IRNA news agency reported, without detailing its contents.
“At this moment I’m not satisfied with what they’re offering,” Trump told reporters, alleging that the stalled talks were the result of “tremendous discord” within Iran’s leadership.
“Do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever – or do we want to try and make a deal?” he added, saying he would “prefer not” to take the first option “on a human basis”.
The US Treasury warned shippers not to pay tolls to transit the Strait of Hormuz, even in the form of charity.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
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