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Finland, Sweden to Send Teams to Turkey to Discuss NATO Bids, Haavisto Says

Pekka Haavisto, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland of Finland, addresses a panel session during the 51st annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, 24 May 2022. (EPA)
Pekka Haavisto, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland of Finland, addresses a panel session during the 51st annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, 24 May 2022. (EPA)
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Finland, Sweden to Send Teams to Turkey to Discuss NATO Bids, Haavisto Says

Pekka Haavisto, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland of Finland, addresses a panel session during the 51st annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, 24 May 2022. (EPA)
Pekka Haavisto, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland of Finland, addresses a panel session during the 51st annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, 24 May 2022. (EPA)

Finland and Sweden will send delegations to Ankara on Wednesday to try to resolve Turkish opposition to their applications for membership of the NATO military alliance, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said on Tuesday.

"We are sending our delegations to visit Ankara, actually both Sweden and Finland. This will happen tomorrow, so the dialogue is continuing," Haavisto said during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who has objected to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, held phone calls with the leaders of the two Nordic countries on Saturday and discussed his concerns.

Turkey says Sweden and Finland harbor people linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and followers of Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt.

"We understand that Turkey has some of their own security concerns vis a vis terrorism ... We think that these issues can be settled. There might be also some issues that are not linked directly to Finland and Sweden but more to other NATO members," Haavisto said.

Erdogan told Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on Saturday that Ankara expected concrete steps to address its concerns, according to the Turkish presidency. He also said an arms exports embargo imposed on Turkey after its Syria incursion in 2019 should be lifted, it added.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said on Saturday he had held "open and direct" talks on the phone with Erdogan.

"I stated that as NATO allies Finland and Turkey will commit to each other's security and our relationship will thus grow stronger," Niinisto tweeted after the call.

Erdogan spoke also with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Saturday, telling him that Ankara would not look positively on Sweden and Finland's NATO bids unless they clearly show cooperation in the fight against terrorism and other issues.

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World

Netanyahu Says Israel Will Help Make Iran ‘Terror Regime’ Disappear

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference, amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, in Jerusalem, March 19, 2026. (Reuters)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference, amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, in Jerusalem, March 19, 2026. (Reuters)
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Netanyahu Says Israel Will Help Make Iran ‘Terror Regime’ Disappear

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference, amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, in Jerusalem, March 19, 2026. (Reuters)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference, amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran, in Jerusalem, March 19, 2026. (Reuters)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said Israel would help to make Iran's "terror regime" disappear, as talks to reach a peace agreement between the US and Tehran appeared to stutter.

"This terror regime which is destined to disappear from the world, and we will help bring about this outcome, this regime will no longer threaten us with nuclear bombs and thousands of lethal ballistic missiles," Netanyahu said at an event marking the appointment of Major General Roman Gofman as the head of Israel's Mossad spy agency.

World

Iran Plans Three-Day Funeral for Late Supreme Leader

A woman holds an image of late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during a rally in Tehran, Iran, May 29, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
A woman holds an image of late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during a rally in Tehran, Iran, May 29, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
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Iran Plans Three-Day Funeral for Late Supreme Leader

A woman holds an image of late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during a rally in Tehran, Iran, May 29, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
A woman holds an image of late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during a rally in Tehran, Iran, May 29, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters

Iran said on Tuesday it will hold a three-day state funeral for late supreme leader Ali Khamenei, killed by US-Israeli strikes on the first day of the Middle East war, at a date to be announced.

Ali Khamenei, who led the country for nearly 37 years, was killed in his home in central Tehran on February 28.

A state funeral initially planned for March 4 was postponed due to the war.

"A three-day public funeral is planned," Tehran Deputy Mayor Mohammad Amin Tavakolizadeh was quoted as saying by state television on Tuesday.

Tavakolizadeh did not specify when the funeral would take place but said it could be in early Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, which falls in mid-June.

He said funeral events would take place in Tehran, as well as in the cities of Qom and Mashhad, where Khamenei would be buried.

"In Tehran, the ceremony will last at least 24 hours," Tavakolizadeh stated, adding that up to 20 million people are expected to attend.

World

UN Warns of ‘Unprecedented’ Gaps in Global Food Aid Amid Funding Cuts

Palestinians wait to receive donated food at a distribution center in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (AP)
Palestinians wait to receive donated food at a distribution center in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (AP)
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UN Warns of ‘Unprecedented’ Gaps in Global Food Aid Amid Funding Cuts

Palestinians wait to receive donated food at a distribution center in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (AP)
Palestinians wait to receive donated food at a distribution center in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (AP)

The United Nations warned Tuesday that dramatic funding cuts for aid, at a time of multiple crises, have created unparallelled gaps, leaving tens of millions going hungry.

The UN's World Food Program said it was facing a 75-percent shortfall in its funding, with dire and deadly consequences.

"The gaps are unprecedented," Rania Dagash-Kamara, WFP's assistant executive director for partnerships and innovation, told reporters in Geneva.

"Country by country, we are making brutal choices about who to reach."

While there has been much focus on US cuts, Dagash-Kamara stressed that Washington remained WFP's top donor.

The biggest shock to the system, she said, had been "the collective European pullback and cuts".

"The cuts that we are seeing from the Europeans are I think where the largest gap for us is at the moment," she said.

"That we would like to see redressed."

- Multiple famines looming -

The WFP official stressed that cuts were being made to "life-saving work" at a time when multiple famines were looming.

"Malnutrition clinics are closing," she said, warning that the world was conducting "a real-time experiment" by deciding to "pull out the support and let's find out afterwards who is going to stay alive".

Dagash-Kamara described a mother in Afghanistan who had walked four hours to a clinic with her children, only to be turned away.

"She is malnourished, her children are malnourished and we could not help her," she said.

"When the system breaks as it is now, she fades away, and her children waste away."

The deep cuts were coming while the challenges have been multiplying, including from the war in the Middle East, which has piled on logistical difficulties and hiked prices for aid deliveries in a range of countries.

The WFP has said it wants to reach 110 million people in the most acute need around the world this year, for which it would require $13 billion.

- 40% reduction in contributions -

Dagash-Kamara pointed out that the agency had made the same funding requests a decade ago, but since then, "the need is double".

With funding falling far short, "we are trying to reach a lot more people. And it is simply not doable", she said.

She pointed out that the agency received $10 billion in contributions in 2024, but last year the amount had shrunk to $6 billion.

"That is a 40-percent reduction in contributions, and that is tens of millions of people that we are unable to reach as a result," she said.

And so far this year, the agency has received just $2.9 billion.

Dagash-Kamara stressed that WFP had been "ruthlessly" streamlining its operations even before the wave of aid funding cuts to sweep the globe since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year.

But "we cannot optimize a 75-percent shortfall in our funding. We cannot buy the food needed nor can we pay to ship and distribute it," she said.

The WFP, which on Tuesday appointed Sweden's Carl Skau as its acting executive director to temporarily replace outgoing chief Cindy McCain, was instrumental in addressing two confirmed famines in 2025, in parts of the Gaza Strip and Sudan.

But this year, the world was looking at "famine-like conditions or credible risk in Sudan, in Somalia, in South Sudan, in Mali", Dagash-Kamara warned.

And, she cautioned, "the likelihood is rising sharply, because famine is really the one thing we exist to prevent".