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Putin to Host Iranian President Next Week for Talks

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with government members via a video link in Moscow, Russia January 12, 2022. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with government members via a video link in Moscow, Russia January 12, 2022. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS
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Putin to Host Iranian President Next Week for Talks

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with government members via a video link in Moscow, Russia January 12, 2022. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with government members via a video link in Moscow, Russia January 12, 2022. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS

President Vladimir Putin will host his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi for talks in Moscow next week as Russia tries to help salvage a nuclear deal between world powers and Tehran, state television channel Rossiya-1 reported on Sunday.

Rossiya-1 did not disclose when precisely the meeting between the two leaders would take place, nor the issues they would discuss.

Russia is taking part in talks to revive a 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers - the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and the European Union - that lifted some sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.

Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the deal in 2018, a year after he became US president. Iran later breached many of the deal's nuclear restrictions and kept pushing beyond them.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that progress had been made in the talks to revive the deal.

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Maldives Ban Israelis to Protest Gaza War 

The Maldives had lifted a previous ban on Israeli tourists in the early 1990s and briefly moved to restore relations in 2010. (Getty Images/AFP)
The Maldives had lifted a previous ban on Israeli tourists in the early 1990s and briefly moved to restore relations in 2010. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Maldives Ban Israelis to Protest Gaza War 

The Maldives had lifted a previous ban on Israeli tourists in the early 1990s and briefly moved to restore relations in 2010. (Getty Images/AFP)
The Maldives had lifted a previous ban on Israeli tourists in the early 1990s and briefly moved to restore relations in 2010. (Getty Images/AFP)

The Maldives announced Tuesday it was banning the entry of Israelis from the luxury tourist archipelago in "resolute solidarity" with the Palestinian people.

President Mohamed Muizzu ratified the legislation shortly after it was approved by parliament on Tuesday.

"The ratification reflects the government's firm stance in response to the continuing atrocities and ongoing acts of genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people," his office said in a statement.

"The Maldives reaffirms its resolute solidarity with the Palestinian cause."

The ban will be implemented with immediate effect, a spokesman for Muizzu's office told AFP.

The Maldives, a small Islamic republic of 1,192 strategically located coral islets, is known for its secluded white sandy beaches, shallow turquoise lagoons and Robinson Crusoe-style getaways.

Official data showed that only 59 Israeli tourists visited the archipelago in February, among 214,000 other foreign arrivals.

The Maldives had lifted a previous ban on Israeli tourists in the early 1990s and briefly moved to restore relations in 2010.

Opposition parties and government allies in the Maldives have been pressuring Muizzu to ban Israelis as a statement of opposition to the Gaza war.

Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged its citizens last year to avoid travelling to the Maldives.

The Gaza war broke out after Palestinian group Hamas' October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Gaza's health ministry said on Sunday that at least 1,613 Palestinians had been killed since March 18, when a ceasefire collapsed, taking the overall death toll since the war began to 50,983.