Live Blog: Trump, Netanyahu Set To Discuss Talks With Iran

In a post on X, the Republican senator for Texas, Ted Cruz, said that the US should be arming Iranian protesters now.

Cruz also wrote that overthrowing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would "make America much, much safer."

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US President Donald Trump has reiterated his call for Iran to "make a deal" over its nuclear program or face a "far worse attack" than the one aimed at the country last year when US and Israeli air strikes pummeled Iranian nuclear sites.

Trump has been threatening military strikes against Iran in the wake of a brutal crackdown on antiestablishment protests that rights groups and eyewitness accounts say left thousands dead.

The United States in recent days has deployed jet fighters, air defenses, and what Trump has called an "armada" to the Middle East, a move that has heightened tensions with Iran and increased the likelihood of military action according to experts.

"Hopefully Iran will quickly “Come to the Table” and negotiate a fair and equitable deal - NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS - one that is good for all parties," Trump said in a social media post on January 28.

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Iran's foreign minister said negotiations with Washington cannot take place in an atmosphere of threats of military action in response to a deadly crackdown on anti-establishment protests.

The United States is deploying jet fighters, air defenses, and an air carrier with thousands of troops to the Middle East in a move that has heightened tensions with Iran and increased the likelihood of some sort of military action against Tehran.

US President Donald Trump threatened military strikes against Iran after the authorities, according to several rights groups, killed thousands of people in the crackdown. Trump has backed away slightly from the threats, although he has not ruled out an attack on the Islamic republic and said on January 27 that US warships had arrived in Middle East waters.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was quoted by the ISNA state news agency on January 28 as saying that "conducting diplomacy through military threat cannot be effective or useful."

He added that he had "no contact" with US envoy Steve Witkoff in recent days and that "Iran has not sought negotiations." Trump said in an interview with Axios on January 26 that Tehran has "called on numerous occasions."

Iran has executed a man on charges of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, state media reported on January 28, the second such execution in less than a month.

Hamidreza Sabet Esmaeilpur was hanged after being convicted of espionage, the judiciary's Mizan news agency said.

He was arrested in April 2025.The judiciary alleged Sabet had transmitted classified documents to Israel and was involved in sabotage operations targeting Defense Ministry missile facilities in 2022.

Iran hanged Ali Ardestani on January 7 on similar espionage charges. State media claimed he had confessed to sending information to Mossad operatives in exchange for cryptocurrency. Rights groups have for years accused Iran of extracting forced confessions.

Mike Pompeo, former US secretary of state during Donald Trump's first presidential term, says the United States should not hope for an agreement with Iran's leadership.

In an interview with Fox News, Pompeo said that he believes the Islamic republic will only back down by force.

He published part of the interview on his X account, writing: "The Iranian dictatorship may say it wants an agreement, but any arrangement that keeps this regime in power is inherently incompatible with regional security. This is not a regime that can be negotiated with."

At the same time, Pompeo welcomed the dispatch of US warships to Iran and emphasized the need to maintain strong US pressure on the Iranian government from abroad in order to help the people inside the country determine their own destiny.

Good morning.

According to the latest aggregated data compiled by US-based rights group HRANA as of January 27, the total number of confirmed deaths has reached 6,221. Of these, 5,858 were protesters, 100 were children under the age of 18, 214 were forces affiliated with the government, and 49 were nonprotester civilians. The number of deaths still under investigation has been reported as 17,091. The total number of arrests has reached 42,324.

US President Donald Trump says "another beautiful armada" is heading toward Iran. "There is another beautiful armada floating beautifully toward Iran right now. So, we'll see," Trump said on January 27 in a speech in the US state of Iowa. "I hope they make a deal," Trump added, with regard to the leadership in Tehran.

On January 26, the US Department of Homeland Security deported three known or suspected terrorists, all of whom are former members of the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They were named as Ehsan Khaledi, Mohammad Mehrani, and Morteza Nasirikakolaki.

In what appears to be the first public trial of a protester related to the recent unrest in Iran, the country's judiciary has released images from a court session in the city of Malard on January 27.

The Mizan News Agency reported that the trial opened against multiple defendants accused of involvement in the death of Shahin Dehghani, a law enforcement officer, in Malard earlier this month.

According to news reports, the first defendant in the case is Mohammad Abbasi. His trial was held publicly, during which images of Dehghani's bloodied corpse were displayed on a screen in the courtroom.

The judiciary accuses Abbasi of killing Dehghani by stabbing him with a knife.

The Etemaad newspaper reported that Abbasi's lawyer told the court that the victim had suffered multiple wounds, not all of which were inflicted with the defendant's weapon.

Human rights organizations, criticizing Iran's judicial procedures, consider such trials to lack fair judicial standards.

Iran's security forces have arrested thousands of people on charges of involvement in killings or destruction of public property in the state's brutal crackdown. Some were forced to make confessions on state television.

Recently released video footage from the January 8 protests in Mashhad, Iran, show a group of protesters taking cover from repeated gunfire from government forces.

In another part of the footage, one of the protesters is seen carrying an injured person on his shoulders.

High-profile political prisoners in Iran's notorious Evin Prison have condemned the regime's brutal crackdown, speaking out through smuggled notes.

Reza Khandan, an imprisoned activist, wrote in a note published on January 26 by his wife Nasrin Sotoudeh, that the events of January were not just suppression, "but an attempt to break the nation's back and leave behind the 'scorched earth' that had been promised earlier."

Khandan, who has been imprisoned since December 2024, emphasized that the full extent of the regime's crimes is still unclear, adding, "What has been determined with certainty so far has been one of the most brutal, horrific, and bloody massacres...in the [recent] history of world protests."

"We, and all citizens, human rights activists, and lawyers," Khandan wrote "must demand the establishment of a special court to investigate crimes against humanity and to investigate and try all those who were involved in this killing and repression."

Another political prisoner in Evin Prison, Abolfazl Ghadiani, called the bloody suppression of the protests a "crime against humanity."

Ghadiani wrote that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei "is aware of the extent of the Iranian nation's disgust toward him and clearly knows that the people will not tolerate it."

The crackdown was Khamenei's revenge, Ghadiani wrote.

The elderly political prisoner wrote that "the most peaceful and nonviolent way to change the regime is for the criminal and criminal dictator Ali Khamenei of Iran to ask for forgiveness from the Iranian people, resign, and step aside so that the Iranian people can choose the government of their choice by holding a referendum to change the regime."

In response to a reporter’s question about the reason for the continued internet shutdown in Iran, Fatemeh Mohajerani, a government spokeswoman, said it was necessary to "preserve human lives."

The spokeswoman did not give any further explanation.

Human rights organizations have said that Iran's internet shutdown has meant it is not possible to obtain accurate information and statistics on those killed, injured, and detained.

Ilan Berman, the senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council and a veteran national-security policy adviser, writes in Forbes that the Iranian government has invested billions of dollars in domestic internet infrastructure in recent years, despite the country's economy cratering.

The Forbes report says that these investments reflect "a clear recognition in Tehran that connectivity is the lifeblood of the domestic opposition -- and that controlling it is worth virtually any cost."

According to Berman, since the Green Movement protests in 2009, the Iranian government has gradually created a complex architecture of censorship and information control -- and this structure has been further developed in recent years with the help of technology from Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE.

Instead of saving lives, Berman writes that the internet shutdown has enabled the regime's brutality, with Iran using the "sustained media blackout to carry out the most extensive repression in its history."

Berman is a member of RFE/RL's board of directors.