LIVE: Trump says he’ll run Strait of Hormuz with Ayatollah

Donald Trump has suggested he could jointly run the Strait of Hormuz with the Iranian Ayatollah when it fully reopens to the world.

Asked who would in charge of the key waterway in any deal to end the conflict, Trump said: ‘maybe me, me and… whoever the next ayatollah (is).’

The President also admitted he does not know if Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is alive and that the US was pushing for a ‘very serious form of a regime change.’

He added: ‘We’re dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid. The people within know who they are. They’re very respected. Maybe one of them will be exactly what we’re looking for.’

Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public after he was reportedly injured in the airstrike that killed his father on February 28.

*WITCH has been misspelt and should read as WHICH

Donald Trump has declared a five-day pause on military strikes with Iran in a sensational announcement on his Truth Social platform.

In a post earlier today, the President said the US and Iran ‘have had, over the last two days, very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East,’ Trump wrote in capitals.

Trump said he has instructed the US Department of War to postpone all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure.

It comes after he issued a 48-hour ultimatum for Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday.

Oil prices plunged as stock markets immediately rebounded in reaction to Trump’s remarks.

Aftermath of an Israeli and the US strike on a police station in Tehran

Iran has not updated its official death toll figures for weeks, it has emerged, as internet blackouts mean the number of people killed during the war remains largely unknown.

The last time Iran’s health ministry gave a full update about casualties was on March 8, the ninth day of the conflict, when it said around 1,200 civilians had been killed in US and Israeli airstrikes across the country.

Overseas human rights groups have long been considered one of the most reliable sources of information about life inside the heavily censored Islamic republic.

But with Iran’s connections to the global internet cut off and phone lines down, they are struggling to reach their networks of contacts who are their eyes and ears on the ground.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), which played an important role corroborating deaths during anti-government protests in January, estimates the civilian death toll at 1,407 people, including 214 children.

‘I would say it’s an absolute, absolute minimum, and that’s simply because we don’t have the capacity to be everywhere at one time, understanding the full extent of what’s happening,’ HRANA deputy director Skylar Thompson told AFP.

The Iranian Red Crescent is not providing casualty estimates, but its latest figures indicate 61,555 homes, 19,000 businesses, 275 medical centres, and nearly 500 schools have been damaged.

Iran is planning ‘special events’ for the US and Israel which it says will ‘completely remove the hope of negotiations from the minds of the aggressors’, state media reports.

In a message posted on Telegram by Fars News Agency, sources appeared to reject Donald Trump’s claims of ;major points of agreement’ between the US and Iran.

The message reads: ‘Informed officials in Iran announced that there were no negotiations and emphasized that until the US completely withdrew, evacuated its bases in the region, paid compensation, and received valid guarantees not to repeat the aggression, neither would the war end nor would the Strait of Hormuz be reopened.

‘According to this report, even after the possible end of the war, the situation in the Strait of Hormuz will not return to the pre-war situation.’

In an interview with Fars, an unnamed foreign policy analyst added ‘no sane official in Iran would indulge in such foolishness’ in regards to negotiating with the US.

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has insisted there have been no negotiations with the US, it has been reported.

Ghalibaf denied talks aimed at de-escalating the conflict had taken place and claimed ‘fake news’ was being used to manipulate the oil markets.

It comes as Ghalibaf was named by Israeli media outlets as the individual leading Iranian talks with Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

In a statement on X, Ghalibaf said: ‘Our people demand the complete and humiliating punishment of the aggressors. All officials stand firmly behind their leader and people until this goal is achieved.

‘No negotiations with America have taken place. Fake news is intended to manipulate financial and oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which America and Israel are trapped.’

This is the moment Donald Trump was mocked with his own catchphrase by the spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Iranian military spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari appeared in a video last night ridiculing the President.

‘Hey, Trump, you are fired,’ Zolfaghari said in a video. ‘You are familiar with this sentence. Thank you for your attention to this matter.’

Trump became well known for telling people ‘you’re fired’ in his role on the US version of The Apprentice which he appeared on before running for office.

The Kremlin has said it is monitoring what it described as ‘contradictory’ statements regarding the situation in Iran, the state TASS news agency reported.

‘There have been many different statements today, including some contradictory ones.

‘We continue to monitor the situation closely and hope that it will soon return to a peaceful course,’ TASS cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.

Donald Trump said there had been talks between the United States and Iran over the past day and that the two sides had ‘major points of agreement’, saying that a deal could be done soon to end the conflict.

Two Indian-flagged tankers carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) passed through the Strait of Hormuz earlier today, India’s shipping ministry said.

Tehran has all but halted maritime traffic following US-Israel military strikes choking off a key waterway through which about a fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) normally pass.

Jag Vasant and Pine Gas, carrying LPG about 92,000 metric tonnes combined, are likely to reach Indian ports between March 26 and 28, the ministry said in a statement.

Two other Indian LPG tankers had earlier transited through the strait.

India is the world’s fourth-largest buyer of LNG and second-largest buyer of LPG, which is used for cooking and predominantly sourced from the Middle East.

As supplies dwindle, New Delhi has ordered tighter controls over natural and cooking gas following import disruptions.

Donald Trump’s Middle East envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have been negotiating with Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Israeli media outlets are reporting.

The identity of the Iranian representative has not been made public but Israeli officials have told Hebrew language media that Ghalibaf is leading the talks on behalf of Tehran.

Earlier, Trump said ‘regime change’ was underway in Iran as the US holds peace talks with an unidentified alternative leader.

Trump’s surprise announcement to reporters in Florida was short on detail about whom the US side had contacted, but he said it was ‘not the supreme leader,’ Mojtaba Khamenei.

He described the unidentified negotiator as ‘a top person’ and ‘the most respected and the leader.’

‘We’re going to get together today, by probably phone, because it’s very hard to find a country – it’s very hard for them to get out, I guess,’ Trump told reporters before boarding his plane.

Israeli officials have reportedly been taken surprise by Donald Trump’s remarks on Iran this morning, it has been reported.

Axios is reporting Israel were aware that mediation talks between several countries were under way in an effort to de-escalate US-Iran tensions.

But one senior official said Israel was ‘surprised’ by Trump’s words that there are ‘major points of agreement’ on almost all issues raised.

The official added talks between the US and Israel are scheduled to take place in the Pakistani capital Islamabad later this week and that Vice-President JD Vance may represent the Americans at the summit.

Sir Keir Starmer said Britain must plan for the possibility that the Iran war could continue for some time.

But the Prime Minister added he had no ‘meaningful concerns’ about energy supply.

“All of our focus and energy has to be in the swift de-escalation, but we’ve got to plan on the basis that it could go on for some time, and that’s the way in which we’ll plan this afternoon,” Starmer told MPs, referring to an emergency meeting with his ministers taking place later on Monday.

He added that while the government had to plan for potential pressures on energy security, he said that the government does not have ‘any meaningful concerns about energy supplies.’

The UK was aware of the talks between the US and Iran, Sir Keir Starmer has told MPs.

The Prime Minister reiterated to the Commons Liaison Committee that the UK wanted to see de-escalation and an end to the conflict ‘as swiftly as possible’.

He said: ‘To that end, I welcome the talks reported between the US and Iran.

‘And to be clear with the committee, we the UK were aware that that was happening, and the immediate priority has to be a swift resolution of the conflict and delivering a negotiated agreement which puts tough conditions on Iran, particularly in relation to nuclear weapons.’