US President Donald Trump has abruptly canceled plans to attend his son Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding this weekend, saying he must remain in Washington due to unspecified “circumstances pertaining to Government.”
The Trump administration was preparing for a fresh round of military strikes against Iran, but no final decision had been made, CBS News reported on Friday, citing sources with direct knowledge of the planning.
The US president convened his senior national security team on Friday morning, where Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe briefed him and Vice President J.D. Vance on possible scenarios if talks with Tehran collapse, according to Axios.
Trump “didn’t foreclose the possibility” of renewed strikes, even as he told aides he wanted to give the diplomatic process more time to work, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“I feel it is important for me to remain in Washington, D.C., at the White House during this important period of time,”Trump later wrote in a cryptic message on Truth Social. Trump had hinted at the reason on Thursday, telling reporters that the wedding was “not good timing”because of “a thing called Iran and other things.”
The White House has changed Trump’s weekend schedule as Washington awaits Tehran’s response to what was described as the “final” US proposal to end the nearly three-month war.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said before flying to India that the US expected to receive Iran’s response through Islamabad, which has acted as an intermediary. Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir traveled to Tehran on Friday, while a Qatari delegation also arrived to support the mediation effort.
The US and Iran have refrained from striking each other since a fragile ceasefire began in early April. However, Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with the stalled negotiations in recent days and, according to Axios, has raised the possibility of a final “decisive” major military operation, after which he could declare victory and end the war.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned this week that any renewed US or Israeli attacks could widen the conflict beyond the Middle East, promising “crushing blows” in places Washington and West Jerusalem “cannot even imagine.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that talks were ongoing but that a deal was not close. Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the focus remained on ending the war and that “details related to the nuclear issue are not being discussed at this stage.”
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