分类： politics

Starting September 15, 2026, China will implement a set of revised, more stringent exit and entry regulations crafted to address two pressing policy priorities: preventing unauthorized leakage of sensitive industrial knowhow by veteran technical personnel, and managing travel to nations classified as “high-risk” by Beijing. The 19-article regulatory framework, formally announced by the State Council on July 31, establishes a unified cross-agency system for overseas risk alerts, enhanced scrutiny of travel purpose for all exit-entry applications, and tighter oversight for both Chinese citizens and foreign nationals entering or leaving the country.

Under the new rules, immigration and visa authorities gain expanded authority to interview applicants and request supporting documentation or data to confirm travel purposes and identity. Issuers of formal invitation letters for foreign visitors will now bear legal responsibility for the authenticity of the information they provide. A key provision grants commerce departments the power to issue exit bans for Chinese citizens found to be violating export control or technology trade regulations, or those deemed likely to threaten national industrial or technological security. For travelers heading to high-risk destinations, border and travel document officials are required to issue official warnings advising caution, and may actively discourage travel to areas categorized under the highest risk level. Chinese citizens who commit national security-related offenses overseas face exit bans ranging from six months to three years following their return to China. All exit bans require formal written notification to the affected individual, including disclosure of underlying facts, legal justifications, and appeal channels — except in cases where notification would compromise ongoing national security investigations or criminal probes. Exit-entry intermediary service providers are also mandated to register with local immigration authorities within 15 days of establishment, with all staff registered through their employing companies; existing agencies must complete registration within 90 days of the regulation taking effect.

While the export control provision does not explicitly name targeted industrial sectors, Chinese policy analysts note it aligns with existing restrictions Beijing has already imposed on strategically critical sectors, including electric vehicle batteries, solar panel technology, and rare earth processing. Legal scholar Cheng Xiezhong, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, explained that the framework intentionally avoids an exhaustive list of potential threats, given the broad scope of risks to national security and interests. “The new regulation explicitly names one clear high-risk scenario: violation of export control or technology trade management regulations,” Cheng noted. He added that unauthorized transfers of dual-use technologies or core industrial expertise to overseas entities will fall under the “harm to national security and interests” clause outlined in Article 12 of the new regulation.

A Shandong-based columnist writing under the pen name Xinghe Duke pointed to the phrase “may endanger” as a core defining element of the new policy. “This means authorities will not wait for tangible harm to occur before taking precautionary action,” he explained. “The wording specifying that restrictions are decided by commerce and relevant departments confirms the process follows formal legal procedures. An exit ban is not an arrest; it only prohibits the targeted individual from departing the country at this time.”

Xinghe Duke further connected the new regulation to the State Council’s Regulations on Overseas Investment, which entered into force on July 1, 2026. That earlier rule bars investors from transferring export-controlled goods, technology, services, or data through personnel deployments, overseas work arrangements, technical guidance, or cross-border training programs. He emphasized that engineers holding expertise in core technologies — including EV battery electrolyte formulas, N-type solar cell production technology, and rare earth separation processes — are the primary targets of the new exit-entry rules.

“Previously, foreign firms evaded China’s export controls by poaching Chinese engineers with higher salaries, permanent residency, and equity to build duplicate production facilities in Vietnam, India, or Mexico,” Xinghe Duke said. “That route is now closed under the new regulatory framework.” He added that ongoing rare earth separation projects in Australia (backed by U.S. and Japanese firms) and Texas have depended on recruiting experienced Chinese technical personnel to overcome purity production bottlenecks.

The policy shift follows a series of escalating trade and technology tensions dating back to 2025. When the Trump administration launched a global trade war targeting China in April 2025, Beijing retaliated with export restrictions on critical minerals, separation equipment, and purification technology bound for the U.S. Similar restrictions were imposed on Japan after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made pro-Taiwan statements last November. As the U.S., Japan, and EU work to build alternative rare earth supply chains in Australia, Brazil, and across Africa, they have increasingly turned to recruiting Chinese industry veterans to launch their projects, prompting Beijing to ramp up efforts to stem talent and technology outflows in recent months.

Chinese state media reported in June 2025 that a wave of senior executive resignations at state-owned rare earth producers had drawn regulatory scrutiny, noting that experienced industry professionals had become prime recruitment targets for foreign entities. In response, authorities already rolled out a series of pilot restrictions in select regions: three-year post-resignation bans on senior technical staff taking roles with competing overseas firms, digital watermarking for internal company documents that triggers automatic alerts if copied overseas, mandatory advance reporting to company party organizations for core staff whose children plan to study abroad, and advance travel application requirements for family members of key technical personnel.

In April 2026, China’s Ministry of State Security publicly disclosed details of a 2023 espionage case in which a manager surnamed Cheng at a Chinese rare earth company was sentenced to 11.5 years in prison for leaking state secrets to an employee of a foreign nonferrous metals firm. Cheng made frequent trips abroad and accepted roughly $510,000 in bribes, which he used to cover living expenses for his wife and daughter who resided overseas.

Industry observers note that prior pilot measures had notable gaps that the new exit-entry regulation addresses. Previously, authorities could only block departure for individuals already involved in an active criminal investigation; retirees and resigned employees had no legal obligation to disclose travel plans, as long as they were not formally employed by a foreign firm. These loopholes are widely seen as a key driver behind Beijing’s decision to implement broader, more systemic exit-entry restrictions.

Beyond technology security, the regulation also includes provisions governing travel to high-risk countries. Some Chinese legal experts frame the high-risk travel provisions as a consumer protection measure, designed to help Chinese travelers avoid falling victim to transnational scam networks or entering active conflict zones. “The regulation requires Chinese foreign affairs and culture and tourism authorities to issue timely security alerts and travel risk warnings based on conditions including war, armed conflict, public safety threats, natural disasters, and disease outbreaks,” explained Guo Yongliang, deputy dean and professor at the School of Foreign-Related Security at the China People’s Police University. “It also mandates that immigration officials warn travelers heading to high-risk destinations to exercise caution during the travel document application and border clearance processes.”

However, observers have noted that China’s travel warning system has also been used to exercise diplomatic pressure. After Prime Minister Takaichi’s pro-Taiwan remarks in November 2025, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued an official advisory urging Chinese citizens to avoid travel to Japan. In mid-2026, Chinese travel agencies reportedly began planning to resume sales of Japanese tour packages, but Chinese authorities quickly halted the plan.

Data from the Japan National Tourism Organization shows that roughly 2.06 million Chinese mainland tourists visited Japan in the first half of 2026, a 56.4% year-on-year decline. Even with the drop, average monthly arrivals hit 340,000, most of which are independent travelers rather than organized tour groups. Policy analysts say the new exit-entry regulation gives Beijing additional administrative tools to discourage Chinese travel to Japan, as a means of increasing political pressure on Tokyo.

Twelve months ago, one of India’s most high-profile political masterminds left analysts questioning his future after a catastrophic debut as a party leader. Prashant Kishor’s newly launched Jan Suraj party failed to secure a single seat in Bihar’s hotly contested 2025 state assembly elections, a result that many political commentators wrote off as the end of his transition from behind-the-scenes strategist to frontline politician. Today, that narrative has been turned on its head: Kishor has pulled off one of the most surprising political comebacks in recent Indian electoral history, clinching the high-stakes Bankipur by-election and securing his first seat as an elected lawmaker.

The result has sent shockwaves through India’s political circles, particularly because the Bankipur constituency had been a solid stronghold of the ruling national Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for 30 years, stretching back to 1995. The seat was vacated earlier this year after its five-time incumbent Nitin Nabin, who inherited the constituency from his father, resigned following his election to India’s upper parliamentary house. Kishor’s defeat of the BJP’s candidate in the by-election marks a major upset, one that has reignited fierce debate over both Kishor’s national political ambitions and whether Jan Suraj can grow into a credible, long-term rival to Bihar’s established political parties. Most political observers remain cautious, noting that a single by-election result cannot be used to predict broader electoral shifts, but few deny the significance of Kishor’s win after his defeat just a year prior.

Kishor’s journey to this victory has been a decades-long career navigating India’s complex political landscape, built on a reputation as the country’s most in-demand election strategist. In 2014, he was a key architect of Narendra Modi’s breakthrough general election win, revolutionizing Indian campaigning by introducing innovative tactics – including hologram appearances that allowed Modi to address thousands of small grassroots gatherings simultaneously, a tactic that was unheard of in Indian politics at the time. However, his partnership with the BJP quickly fractured, and Kishor moved to the opposition, helping broker the JD(U)-RJD alliance that unseated the BJP in Bihar’s 2015 state assembly election. He then joined JD(U) as vice president under then-chief minister Nitish Kumar, only for another split to occur in 2020, when Kishor resigned from the party over its decision to back the BJP-led federal government’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Act.

In 2021, Kishor notched another high-profile win as a strategist, helping West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee fend off a massive BJP challenge to retain her seat. That victory, he announced, would mark the end of his career as a political consultant, capping a career that saw him advise parties across the entire ideological spectrum of Indian politics, even working for rival candidates against one another. In 2022, he launched a months-long cross-state foot march (known locally as a padyatra) across Bihar, laying the groundwork for his own political party, Jan Suraj, which he officially launched in 2024.

When Jan Suraj failed to win a single seat in the 2025 Bihar state elections, most political observers wrote Kishor off entirely. His decision to contest the Bankipur by-election was widely dismissed as a high-stakes long shot, a gamble that would likely end in another defeat. But this time, the gamble paid off.

Bihar, one of India’s most politically critical states, sends 40 members of parliament to the Lok Sabha, India’s lower parliamentary house. With a population larger than that of the United Kingdom and a geographic footprint roughly the size of Portugal, the state has struggled with systemic unemployment for decades, a crisis that has pushed generations of Bihar residents to migrate across India and abroad to find low-wage manual work in sectors like construction. Addressing chronic unemployment and reversing mass out-migration has been the core of Kishor’s political agenda since he launched his 2022 padyatra, and he doubled down on these messaging priorities during the Bankipur campaign.

In a shrewd tactical move, Kishor framed the by-election as a head-to-head contest between himself and Bihar’s incumbent Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary, repeatedly arguing that Chaudhary lacked the ability to solve Bihar’s long-standing crises. By shifting the focus to national political leadership rather than hyper-local constituency issues, Kishor sidelined his main opponent, the BJP’s Abhishek Kumar, and other minor candidates, keeping all voter attention on his challenge to the ruling establishment.

Demographics also played a key role in Kishor’s win. The Bankipur constituency is home to dozens of colleges and competitive exam coaching centers, with nearly one-third of all registered voters under the age of 30. This youth-heavy electorate comes at a time of rising nationwide youth unrest over unemployment and flawed public sector recruitment exams, a crisis that forced a senior Indian government minister to resign just weeks before the by-election. Kishor centered his campaign on addressing youth unemployment and stopping the mass exodus of young Bihar residents forced to leave the state for work, a platform that resonated deeply with the constituency’s large young voter base.

For now, political analysts warn that it is far too early to declare Kishor a major emerging force in Bihar or national politics. A single by-election win does not guarantee that his anti-establishment, youth-focused platform will translate to broader success in multi-seat state or national elections, and Indian politics has a long history of grassroots protest movements failing to convert public frustration into sustained electoral support. Even so, Kishor’s comeback from total electoral defeat to elected office has already upended expectations, and will keep political observers watching closely to see what he does next.

NEW DELHI — For weeks, a raucous cohort of young Indian activists gathered under a deliberately absurd, unapologetically provocative banner: the Cockroach Janta Party. Wielding hand-painted signs mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his administration, this grassroots movement achieved what few opposition groups have managed in Modi’s more than 12 years in power: it forced the resignation of a sitting cabinet minister.

Widely regarded as one of the most dominant Indian prime ministers in modern history, Modi has built a public persona of unassailable, decisive leadership, with his government almost never backing down in the face of public pressure. But the late resignation of former Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan stands as a striking exception, political analysts say, one that lays bare two shifting dynamics in Indian politics: the growing clout of India’s under-25 population, which makes up nearly half the nation, and the rising power of digital-first grassroots organizing.

“This particular round has ended in a very important defeat for Mr. Modi,” said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a prominent political analyst and author of a biography of Modi. He added that the concession has shattered the widespread climate of fear that critics say the Modi administration has cultivated to suppress dissent. “The threshold of fear has been broken. People are no longer scared to go and step out and protest,” Mukhopadhyay noted.

The movement began as a small, satirical push in May with one clear, uncompromising demand: Pradhan’s resignation over widespread leaks of high-stakes examination papers, outcomes of which can make or break a young Indian’s career prospects. Fueled by young, urban Indians who organized across social media platforms before taking their demands to the streets, the protests quickly expanded beyond the initial exam leak controversy. They evolved into a broader call for governmental accountability, tapping into deep-seated public frustration over sky-high youth unemployment, lack of administrative transparency, and what activists see as the erosion of independence for India’s public institutions.

Mukhopadhyay emphasized that this marks the first time a student-led grassroots movement has maintained enough momentum to force the government to meet its core demand, without any backing from established mainstream political parties. “Each one had their own little grievance about life not taking them anywhere,” he explained of the protestors.

While it remains unclear whether this mass youth energy can be translated into electoral gains against Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), movement leaders frame their success as proof that public pressure still holds weight in Indian democracy.

“An arrogant government which did not blink for 12 years was forced to blink when the youth united,” said Saurav Das, a spokesperson for the Cockroach Janta Party. Das reiterated that the movement has no plans to reorganize as a formal political party, instead aiming to operate as an independent public watchdog. “We want to remain a pressure group,” he said.

The unexpected success of the movement has already forced strategic adjustments within the BJP. In the weeks following the protests, Modi has increasingly appeared in short, vertical short-form videos tailored for Instagram and other platforms popular with young Indian voters. The party has expanded its youth outreach through targeted digital campaigns, with some sitting lawmakers even adopting Gen Z slang in public appearances, including speeches on the floor of Parliament. This shift comes in sharp contrast to the movement’s early days, when Modi and his allies dismissed the protests as a trivial, insignificant fringe movement. As crowds grew and momentum built, however, the government was forced to acknowledge the movement’s growing influence.

Following Pradhan’s resignation, Modi has also made public gestures toward reconciliation, saying he forgives those who mocked him — a clear outreach effort to win back alienated young voters. For Mukhopadhyay, the movement’s most lasting impact is that it has permanently damaged the carefully cultivated image of Modi as a leader immune to public pressure.

“That image of Mr. Modi is heavily tarnished,” he said. Not all reactions have been conciliatory, however: hardline BJP supporters online have moved to identify protestors and dox their personal information to intimidate activists into stepping back.

Solidarity protests popped up in cities across India, with supporters sending food and essential supplies to demonstrators camped in New Delhi who participated in extended hunger strikes to draw attention to their cause. Opposition leaders, human rights activists, and even several Bollywood celebrities have publicly backed the movement, helping spread its message far beyond the original protest camps.

For Neha Bora, a student leader who took part in the New Delhi hunger strike, the movement’s success proves ordinary citizens still have the power to hold powerful leaders accountable. “If they (ministers) do not serve the people of this country, no matter what cabinet minister they are, they will be brought down from their seats,” she said.

In a landmark cabinet-approved policy announcement released Tuesday, the Japanese government has outlined a sweeping shift in national defense strategy, calling for urgent adaptation to modern combat tactics centered on drone and artificial intelligence technology — lessons drawn from ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East — alongside a major expansion of the country’s domestic defense industrial base. The 598-page annual defense policy paper also reaffirms Japan’s position that China represents the nation’s greatest long-term strategic challenge, amid growing alarm over Beijing’s expanding military activity in the Pacific Ocean.

Over the past decade, Japan has steadily ramped up its military capabilities and defense spending, particularly along its southwestern island chain. It has already begun deploying long-range cruise missiles to establish a credible deterrent against what Japanese officials frame as increasingly assertive Chinese military moves, including growing tensions over the Taiwan Strait, where China claims sovereignty over the self-governing island.

Drawn directly from Ukraine’s widespread use of inexpensive combat drones to counter much larger invading forces, the new strategy frames adaptation to “new modes of warfare” as a non-negotiable national security priority. With nations across the globe racing to advance drone combat capabilities, Tokyo has placed top priority on developing domestically produced combat drones for coastal defense, designed to operate in tandem with the country’s new long-range missile deployments.

Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi emphasized the urgency of the program, noting that rapid development is the core of the initiative. Japan’s Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency has already shortlisted four domestic drone manufacturers from a pool of 38 applicants for an accelerated development track. The selected prototypes will undergo sea testing by the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force in early August ahead of a final production selection. Major industrial players have already joined the push: just last Friday, industrial giant Toshiba announced a partnership with domestic startup Pro Drone to co-develop combat drone systems.

Beyond tactical military advantages, domestic drone development also addresses a pressing demographic challenge facing Japan’s armed forces. Uncrewed weapon systems can help offset the steady decline in active-duty service members, a consequence of Japan’s decades-long population shrinkage. Still, experts warn that building a fully indigenous combat drone industry poses significant hurdles: Japan’s commercial civilian drone market is currently dominated by Chinese imports, requiring major investment to build domestic supply chains and manufacturing capacity from scratch.

Beyond drone development, the policy paper highlights growing Japanese concern over security threats across multiple regional fronts. Alongside China’s expanding Pacific presence, it cites growing joint military operations between China and Russia near Japanese territory — including coordinated bomber flights and naval maneuvers — as a severe threat to national security. It also labels North Korea’s accelerated missile development program, including its work on hypersonic weapons, plus Pyongyang’s deepening military ties with Moscow amid its invasion of Ukraine, as an “increasingly serious and pressing threat” to regional stability.

The document details multiple recent incidents that have heightened Japanese security concerns, including a December 2023 incident where Chinese fighter jets operating near southwestern Japan during aircraft carrier drills locked their targeting radars on Japanese aircraft — a move widely viewed as a preliminary step to launching a missile strike. In June 2024, two Chinese aircraft carriers were spotted near Japan’s Iwo Jima for the first time, a deployment that triggered deep alarm in Tokyo over Beijing’s ability to project military power far from its own coast, into the Pacific and disputed areas of the East China Sea. Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing rose sharply late last year after senior Japanese politician Sanae Takaichi stated that a Chinese military attack on Taiwan could meet the criteria for Japan to invoke its collective self-defense right and deploy military force.

A central pillar of the new strategy is a major push to strengthen Japan’s domestic defense industry, a sector that has remained underdeveloped for decades due to the country’s post-World War II pacifist constitution and long-standing restrictions on arms development and exports. The Japanese government is already expanding funding for defense-focused startups and research into dual-use technologies that can be adapted from commercial to military applications. Officials note that while many large established Japanese companies have historically avoided involvement with lethal weapons programs, a growing number of domestic startups are pursuing opportunities to convert commercial technologies for military use.

A landmark policy shift last year that scrapped Japan’s decades-long ban on lethal weapons exports is already unlocking new growth for the sector, Koizumi explained. Allowing international technology transfers, joint development, and export of Japanese-built weapons not only strengthens the domestic defense industrial base but also deepens security partnerships with allied nations, the defense minister added, noting that his international travel has increasingly included efforts to advance Japanese arms export deals.

In recent months, Japan has already secured several major international defense agreements, including a deal for joint development and transfer of 11 upgraded Mogami-class frigates to Australia. Tokyo is currently negotiating a similar partnership with New Zealand, and has already finalized a deal to sell retired Japanese destroyers to the Philippines.

Fresh details of a secret arms deal negotiation between the United Arab Emirates and Israel have come to light, following a leak of internal emails from Israel’s largest defense contractor, Elbit Systems. The correspondence, published for the first time by Haaretz and Drop Site News, lays bare how Abu Dhabi accelerated push for the purchase of Israeli intelligence and surveillance drones just weeks after a deadly cross-border attack by Yemen’s Houthi movement in early 2022.

The hacked emails, which cover a period from 2021 through the start of 2023, outline early discussions between Elbit Systems and UAE parties over a package of Israeli defense technology. The proposed deal includes Hermes 900 reconnaissance drones, SkyEye wide-area surveillance sensors, ground control infrastructure, as well as personnel training and long-term logistical support. According to the leaked documents, the entire transaction was reclassified as an “urgent priority” immediately after the January 17, 2022 Houthi missile and drone assault on Abu Dhabi that targeted key infrastructure including oil tanker facilities and Abu Dhabi International Airport.

The cache of executive emails was obtained by Handala, an anonymous online hacking group that open-source intelligence researchers claim has ties to the Iranian government. Both Haaretz and Drop Site News independently verified the authenticity of the documents before publishing their reporting. Initial projections valued the core drone deal at $154 million, with optional system upgrades pushing the total projected contract value to $225 million. To date, the leaked correspondence offers no confirmation on whether the ordered drones and systems have been delivered to the UAE.

To understand the scope of the technology on offer, the SkyEye surveillance system integrates high-resolution electro-optical cameras that allow aircraft to capture vast swathes of territory in real time. Footage captured by the system can be reviewed from multiple vantage points, enabling operators to trace moving objects and personnel back to their point of origin. The Hermes 900, Elbit’s flagship medium-altitude long-endurance drone, is designed for advanced reconnaissance and surveillance missions, with a maximum payload capacity of 990 pounds. Multiple defense industry reports note the platform can also be configured to carry up to eight surface-to-air missiles for offensive operations.

Internal correspondence shows that just two months after the 2022 Houthi attack, a senior leader from the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s arms development directorate traveled to Abu Dhabi to present a formal proposal for the Hermes 900 sale. The proposal framed the drones as a critical operational solution to extend cross-border surveillance capabilities, specifically to detect incoming missile and drone launches before they reach UAE territory.

The emerging drone deal negotiations come against a backdrop of rapidly warming bilateral defense ties between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi, which date back to the 2020 Abraham Accords. Brokered by the first Trump administration, the normalization agreement between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco was explicitly positioned as a framework to deepen security and defense cooperation across the region. This new leak confirms long-held analyst assessments that cutting-edge Israeli defense technology has been a key driver of growing security partnerships between Israel and Gulf Arab states.

Beyond the core Hermes 900 and SkyEye package, the emails also include passing references to two additional Elbit Systems products: the SkyStriker loitering munition – more commonly known as a “suicide drone” – and the smaller Hermes 650 reconnaissance drone. Today, the UAE stands as one of Israel’s closest partners in the Arab and Muslim world, and has joined Israel and the United States in a series of coordinated military strikes targeting Iranian assets across the Middle East in recent months. As early as May of this year, Middle East Eye first reported that Israel and the UAE had launched a joint defense investment fund to develop and acquire new advanced weapons systems, amid escalating regional tensions with Iran.

The Trump administration finds itself mired in a diplomatic and military quagmire of its own making over Iran, with new revelations showing the U.S. military is actively crowdsourcing innovative strategies from defense experts to break the prolonged stalemate and force Tehran into a deal favorable to President Donald Trump.

According to a Monday report from CNN, a recent email circulated by an intelligence officer within U.S. Central Command (Centcom) explicitly called for “new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran”, a signal that senior defense officials never anticipated the ongoing conflict would stretch on for as long as it has. While a Centcom spokesperson pushed back on framing the move as unusual, noting the command has a long track record of pursuing innovative problem-solving, the public request for outside ideas underscores the lack of a clear path forward for the White House.

The intermittent, tit-for-tat military escalation between the U.S., Israel and Iran that began in late February has triggered cascading global consequences. In response to the hostilities, Iran moved to close off shipping access through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint that carries roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil supplies. The closure sent global energy prices soaring, a development that has directly hit the economic interests of Trump’s core voter base ahead of any potential election.

Amid growing regional pressure to de-escalate, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman emphasized in a Sunday phone call with Trump the urgent need for dialogue to cool tensions, urging all parties to prioritize a truce that would open the door for negotiated diplomatic solutions.

The situation has been further muddled by conflicting public statements over the status of talks. Last Saturday, Trump announced he had called off planned military strikes against Iran and claimed negotiations between Washington and Tehran would officially kick off on Monday. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump argued that Iran had clear motivation to negotiate: “Obviously, they don’t want to be attacked. Now what we’re doing is we’re talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon.”

But Iranian officials have flatly denied Trump’s claim that bilateral talks are underway. Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, clarified during a press briefing that Tehran is currently holding only “constructive” discussions with Oman, focused on establishing new secure shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz. “We are not currently negotiating with the United States. Our negotiations are with Oman to secure passage through the Strait of Hormuz,” Baghaei stated. He added that the status quo in the strait will remain in place as long as the U.S. maintains its naval blockade of Iranian ports, and urged both regional and international powers to respond to Iran’s responsible diplomatic outreach with a constructive approach.