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Iranian President Will Travel to Saudi Arabia for Islamic Summit on Gaza
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi addresses a Hamas solidarity rally in Tehran. Photo: Reuters/Sobhan Farajvan
Iran’s president will attend an emergency summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh on Sunday, in another sign of the rapprochement between the two rival Gulf states amid renewed conflict between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza.
Iranian regime media outlets reported on Friday that President Ebrahim Raisi will fly to Saudi Arabia for Sunday’s meeting, which will address “ways to stop Israel’s savage war machine against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip,” according to Iran’s official English language broadcaster Press TV.
Raisi’s announcement of his trip to Riyadh came as the regime’s “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, launched another attack on US support for Israel in its military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in which more than 1,400 people were murdered and more than 200 seized as hostages. Iran is the main international sponsor of Hamas.
“Since the very first days of the Zionist regime’s attacks, all the evidence and indications show the direct involvement of the Americans in running the war,” Khamenei declared on Friday.
The OIC summit will include Arab states that signed historic peace deals with Israel in 2020, among them the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. While Saudi Arabia still resists diplomatic relations with Israel, rumors of a peace deal brokered by the US administration were widespread in the weeks prior to the Hamas onslaught, with some observers arguing that derailing the rapprochement between Jerusalem and Riyadh by sparking a new war was a key reason behind the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Additionally, Arab Gulf states are “very worried that they’re going to be targeted by Iranian proxy groups who are seeking retaliation against Israel and the United States,” Elham Fakhro of the London-based Chatham House think tank told a panel discussion at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC, on Thursday.
One Saudi political analyst predicted that Sunday’s OIC meeting would demonstrate the support for the Palestinians beyond the Arab world, drawing in Muslim states in Africa and Asia.
“Non-Western countries are not accepting this any longer and not buying the American narrative, the Western narrative of the conflict,” Aziz Alghashian told broadcaster France 24.
The post Iranian President Will Travel to Saudi Arabia for Islamic Summit on Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Trump Is Lying When He Speaks of Peace

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with government officials in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Donald Trump on Saturday of lying when the US president said during his Gulf tour this week that he wanted peace in the region.
On the contrary, said Khamenei, the United States uses its power to give “10-ton bombs to the Zionist (Israeli) regime to drop on the heads of Gaza’s children.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One after departing the United Arab Emirates on Friday that Iran had to move quickly on a US proposal for its nuclear program or “something bad’s going to happen.”
His remarks, said Khamenei, “aren’t even worth responding to.” They are an “embarrassment to the speaker and the American people,” Khamenei added.
“Undoubtedly, the source of corruption, war, and conflict in this region is the Zionist regime — a dangerous, deadly cancerous tumor that must be uprooted; it will be uprooted,” he said at an event at a religious center in Tehran, according to state media.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Trump speaks about peace while simultaneously making threats.
“Which should we believe?” Pezeshkian said at a naval event in Tehran. “On the one hand, he speaks of peace and on the other, he threatens with the most advanced tools of mass killing.”
Tehran would continue Iran-US nuclear talks but is not afraid of threats. “We are not seeking war,” Pezeshkian said.
While Trump said on Friday that Iran had a US proposal about its nuclear program, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in a post on X said Tehran had not received any such proposal. “There is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to (uranium) enrichment for peaceful purposes…” he said.
Araqchi warned on Saturday that Washington’s constant change of stance prolongs nuclear talks, state TV reported.
“It is absolutely unacceptable that America repeatedly defines a new framework for negotiations that prolongs the process,” the broadcast quoted Araqchi as saying.
Pezeshkian said Iran would not “back down from our legitimate rights”.
“Because we refuse to bow to bullying, they say we are source of instability in the region,” he said.
A fourth round of Iran-U.S. talks ended in Oman last Sunday. A new round has not been scheduled yet.
The post Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Trump Is Lying When He Speaks of Peace first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Confirms New Gaza Ceasefire Talks with Israel in Qatar on Saturday

Doha, Qatar. Photo: StellarD via Wikimedia Commons.
A new round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel is underway in Qatar’s Doha, Hamas official Taher al-Nono told Reuters on Saturday.
He said the two sides were discussing all issues without “pre-conditions.”
Nono said Hamas was “keen to exert all the effort needed” to help mediators make the negotiations a success, adding there was “no certain offer on the table.”
The negotiations come despite Israel preparing to expand operations in the Gaza Strip as they seek “operational control” in some areas of the war-torn enclave.
The return to negotiations also comes after US President Donald Trump ended a Middle East tour on Friday with no apparent progress towards a new ceasefire, although he acknowledged Gaza’s growing hunger crisis and the need for aid deliveries.
The post Hamas Confirms New Gaza Ceasefire Talks with Israel in Qatar on Saturday first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Report: ICC’s Khan Goes on Administrative Leave Amid Sexual Misconduct Probe

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
i24 News – Chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan has stepped down temporarily as an investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct by United Nations investigators is nearing its final phase, Reuters reported on Friday citing sources from the international court.
Khan allegedly forced sexual intercourse upon a member of staff on multiple occasions, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, linking the allegations to Khan’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant.
A statement is expected later today announcing that Khan is going on administrative leave, according to a source in the prosecutor’s office.
The post Report: ICC’s Khan Goes on Administrative Leave Amid Sexual Misconduct Probe first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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