Category World News

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has held a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) after a United States aircraft carrier arrived in the region amid growing fears of a new conflict with Israel or the US.

The US has indicated in recent weeks that it is considering an attack against Iran in response to Tehran’s crackdown on protesters, which has left thousands of people dead. US President Donald Trump has sent the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier to the region.

Pezeshkian hit out at US “threats” in the call with Saudi Arabia’s leader on Tuesday, saying they were “aimed at disrupting the security of the region, and will achieve nothing other than instability”.

“The president pointed to recent pressures and hostilities against Iran, including economic pressure and external interference, stating that such actions had failed to undermine the resilience and awareness of the Iranian people,” a statement from Pezeshkian’s office said on Tuesday.

The statement also said that Prince Mohammed “welcomed the dialogue and reaffirmed Saudi Arabia’s commitment to regional stability, security, and development”.

“He emphasised the importance of solidarity among Islamic countries and stated that Riyadh rejects any form of aggression or escalation against Iran,” it said, adding that he had expressed Riyadh’s readiness to establish “peace and security across the region”.

The official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported after the call that Prince Mohammed ‍told Pezeshkian that Riyadh would not allow its airspace or territory to be used for military actions against Tehran.

“HRH the Crown Prince affirmed during the call the Kingdom’s position in respecting the sovereignty of Iran, stressing that the Kingdom will not allow its airspace or territory to be used for any military actions against Iran or for any attacks from any party, regardless of their origin,” SPA reported.

“HRH the Crown Prince also affirmed the Kingdom’s support for any efforts aimed at resolving disputes through dialogue in a manner that enhances security and stability in the region,” the news agency added.

“The Iranian president expressed his gratitude to the Kingdom for its steadfast position on respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran and conveyed his appreciation for the role undertaken by HRH the Crown Prince in exerting efforts and initiatives to achieve security and stability in the region.”

‘Neighbouring countries are our friends’

The call between the two leaders came after Trump repeatedly threatened to attack Iran during Tehran’s deadly crackdown on antigovernment protests this month. Last week, the US president dispatched an “armada” towards Iran but said he hoped he would not have to use it.

Delivering a speech in Iowa on Tuesday, Trump again said that a large “armada” was heading towards Iran and repeated his threats, saying that Tehran should yield to US demands.

“By the way, there’s another beautiful armada floating beautifully toward Iran right now. So we’ll see,” Trump said in his speech.

“I hope they make a deal. I hope they make a deal. They should have made a deal the first time. They’d have a country,” he said, in an apparent reference to US attacks on Iran last June.

Amid growing fears of a new war, a commander from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Tuesday issued a warning to his country’s neighbours.

“Neighbouring countries are our friends, but if their soil, sky, or waters are used against Iran, they will be considered hostile,” Mohammad Akbarzadeh, political deputy of the IRGC’s naval forces, was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.

Israel carried out a wave of attacks on Iran in June 2025, targeting several senior military officials and nuclear scientists, as well as nuclear facilities. The US then joined the 12-day war to bombard three nuclear sites in Iran.

The war came on the eve of a round of planned negotiations between the US and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Since the conflict, Trump has reiterated demands that Iran dismantle its nuclear programme and halt uranium enrichment, but talks have not resumed.

On Monday, a US official said that Washington was “open for business” for Iran.

“I think they know the terms,” the official told reporters when asked about talks with Iran. “They’re aware of the terms.”

Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that the odds of Iran surrendering to the US’s demands are “near zero”.

Iran’s leaders believe “compromise under pressure doesn’t alleviate it but rather invites more”, Vaez said.

But while the US military builds up its presence in the region, Iran has warned that it would retaliate if an attack is launched.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson warned on Tuesday that the consequences of a strike on Iran could affect the region as a whole.

Palestinians in need of advanced medical care say they’re hopeful Gaza’s Rafah border with Egypt will reopen soon after Israel received remains of the last captive on Monday, a key part of the first stage of the US-backed plan to end the war.

CBS News Editor-In-Chief Bari Weiss has unveiled the network’s new plan to grow the audience amid efforts to broaden the network’s political appeal after a set of blunders.

Among the changes that were announced in an all-hands meeting on Tuesday, the network will bring on 18 new commentators akin to US cable news powerhouses, CNN, MS Now and Fox, as well as steep staffing cuts to those who don’t align with Weiss’s vision for the network, as first reported by NPR which sourced the information from a set of journalists within the network who spoke under condition of anonymity.

In an all-hands call with staffers, the network said that it will need to expand its reach beyond typical broadcasting and lean more into podcasting, according to audio first obtained by the outlet Business Insider.

“I’m here to tell you that if we stick to that [focusing on broadcast] strategy, we’re toast,” Weiss said.

The new hires include conservative podcasters Niall Ferguson and Patrick McGee and others like physician Mark Hyman, who has close ties to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr who has been controversial for scaling back vaccines.

Weiss, who despite not having any previous television experience, was tapped in October to lead the storied news organisation after Paramount Skydance acquired the conservative opinion writer’s publication, The Free Press, for $150m amid efforts to reach a more politically diverse audience.

The hiring of Weiss was among several key moves the network made in recent months to appease the White House, including settling a lawsuit alleging that 60 Minutes doctored an interview with then–presidential hopeful Kamala Harris for $16m, and appointing Kenneth Weinstein, a former Trump administration official, as ombudsman to investigate allegations of bias.

Weiss missteps

“The honest truth is, right now, we are not producing a product that enough people want,” Weiss said in audio of the all-hands meeting, according to Business Insider.

But Weiss has been behind many of the recent decisions that led to a slump in viewership. The network’s town hall with Erika Kirk — wife of the murdered far-right provocateur Charlie Kirk, saw a 11 percent decline in viewership compared to typical viewership in the same time slot.

Weiss has also been behind several other missteps in her short tenure at the network thus far. She delayed the airing of a 60 Minutes segment about the notorious CERCOT mega prison in El Salvador. Weiss claimed that the segment, which was already set for air, needed more reporting, which correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi criticised, calling it a “political decision” in an email.

She also oversaw the relaunch of the CBS Evening News with a new host, former CBS Mornings anchor Tony Dokoupil, who has been with the network since 2016. The show has gone through five different anchor teams since he joined the network.

“We put too much weight on the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you,” Dokoupil said in a video promoting his new spot.

But that was not well received.

“You wouldn’t want ‘academics and elites’ who have actually studied a subject to outweigh the off-the-cuff opinions of village idiots. This is how we’re seeing the resurgence of measles, and the widespread belief in almost non-existent vote fraud, among many other great leaps backward in the Trump era,” Larry Sabado, director of the Center For Politics at University of Virginia, said in a post on X.

And that message has not won over viewers either. While CBS has been last place among broadcast evening news programmes for decades, it continues to lose its market share under Weiss. The network’s flagship news show lost more than a million viewers during its inaugural week under the new host compared to the same time the year before.

It comes as the network’s parent company continually lobs hostile takeover bids to Warner Bros Discovery, which would include another news network often in the White House’s crosshairs – CNN.

In December, Ellison visited the White House, as per media reports, and told Trump that Paramount would execute “sweeping changes” if it acquired CNN’s parent company.