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Iran’s Former Top Diplomat Urges Deal with US to End War

A newly constructed bridge struck by US airstrikes Thursday is seen in Karaj, west of Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP)
A newly constructed bridge struck by US airstrikes Thursday is seen in Karaj, west of Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP)
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Iran’s Former Top Diplomat Urges Deal with US to End War

A newly constructed bridge struck by US airstrikes Thursday is seen in Karaj, west of Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP)
A newly constructed bridge struck by US airstrikes Thursday is seen in Karaj, west of Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP)

Iran should make a deal with the United States to end the war by offering to curb its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for sanctions relief, a former Iranian foreign minister said.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, who served as foreign minister from 2013-2021, claimed in an op-ed for American journal Foreign Affairs that Tehran had the "upper hand" in the conflict against the US and Israel, but argued Iran needed to stop the war to prevent the loss of more civilian lives and damage to infrastructure.

"Iran should use its upper hand not to keep fighting but to declare victory and make a deal that both ends this conflict and prevents the next one," Zarif said in the piece published late Thursday.

"It should offer to place limits on its nuclear program and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to all sanctions -- a deal Washington wouldn't take before but might accept now," he added.

Iran should also be prepared to accept a mutual "nonaggression pact" with the United States, as well as economic relations, he said. Tehran and Washington have had no diplomatic ties since shortly after the 1979 revolution.

Zarif, one of the architects of the now moribund 2015 deal over the Iranian nuclear program, is seen as a relative moderate within the regime’s elite, but has no official post in the current government.

However, this is one of the first times during this conflict that a high-profile figure in Iran has called for a deal and an end to the war, with top military and political officials urging daily for fighting to continue until the US is defeated.

US President Donald Trump has evoked ongoing talks with Tehran without giving details but also threatened to send the country "back to the stone ages" if it fails to agree terms.

"As an Iranian, outraged by Donald Trump's reckless aggression and crude insults, yet proud of our armed forces and resilient people, I am torn about publishing this peace-plan in Foreign Affairs," Zarif wrote in English on X Friday.

"Yet I'm convinced that war must end on terms consistent with Iran's national interests," he added.

Zarif in the Foreign Affairs piece warned that "although continuing to fight the United States and Israel might be psychologically satisfying, it will lead only to the further destruction of civilian lives and infrastructure".

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World

Reports: 10 Dead in Crash Between 2 Spanish Trains in Toledo Province

Two people sit below an information screen with a message stating that the high-speed train line between Madrid and Andalucia has been interrupted following the collision of two high-speed trains between the towns of Mora and Orgaz, at the Atocha train station in Madrid, Spain, October 28, 2026. (Reuters)
Two people sit below an information screen with a message stating that the high-speed train line between Madrid and Andalucia has been interrupted following the collision of two high-speed trains between the towns of Mora and Orgaz, at the Atocha train station in Madrid, Spain, October 28, 2026. (Reuters)
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Reports: 10 Dead in Crash Between 2 Spanish Trains in Toledo Province

Two people sit below an information screen with a message stating that the high-speed train line between Madrid and Andalucia has been interrupted following the collision of two high-speed trains between the towns of Mora and Orgaz, at the Atocha train station in Madrid, Spain, October 28, 2026. (Reuters)
Two people sit below an information screen with a message stating that the high-speed train line between Madrid and Andalucia has been interrupted following the collision of two high-speed trains between the towns of Mora and Orgaz, at the Atocha train station in Madrid, Spain, October 28, 2026. (Reuters)

Spain’s state-owned news agency and other local media say at least 10 people have died in a crash between two trains in central Spain.

Spain’s rail system operator ADIF said the crash occurred Wednesday morning in the province of Toledo. Rail service is suspended between Madrid, Ciudad Real and Andalusia.

TVE is reporting that the accident was between two high-speed trains heading in the same direction and that one ran into the tail of the other, knocking two of its cars off the track.

The mayor of the nearby town of Urda, Manuel Galán, told Spanish state broadcaster TVE that passengers had been injured and that civil protection authorities had asked his town hall to prepare a sports pavilion to attend to passengers.

The mayor of another nearby village, Jesús Pérez of Los Yébenes, told TVE that it appeared that the accident was "serious.”

The regional president of Castilla La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, wrote on X that he is on his way to the crash site.

In January, 45 people died in southern Spain when a train jumped the track and hit an oncoming train. The crash was the deadliest in Spain since a 2013 crash that killed 80 people. The January incident shook the confidence the European country has in its extensive high-speed rail network.

World

Palestinian Activist Khalil Returns to Columbia After US Detention

Algerian-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is pictured during an interview with AFP in New York on October 26, 2026. (AFP)
Algerian-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is pictured during an interview with AFP in New York on October 26, 2026. (AFP)
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Palestinian Activist Khalil Returns to Columbia After US Detention

Algerian-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is pictured during an interview with AFP in New York on October 26, 2026. (AFP)
Algerian-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is pictured during an interview with AFP in New York on October 26, 2026. (AFP)

Mahmoud Khalil, a figurehead of Gaza war protests in the United States, returned Tuesday to Columbia University for the first time since his 2025 arrest under President Donald Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists.

The 31-year-old told AFP his presence for an event on his new memoir, attended by around 100 people, was a "victory," as he accused Columbia of seeking "to erase me, to erase any Palestinian voices on campus."

He has slammed the Ivy League institution for its response to the 2024 student demonstrations, which included allowing New York police to clear protesters from its Manhattan campus in a heavy-handed operation.

Columbia said at the time the protests were a safety threat.

Khalil has also accused the university of failing to protect him from harassment ahead of his arrest by US immigration authorities and three-month detention without criminal charge, before his release in June 2025.

"Columbia could have been an example for how to have difficult conversations on campus, how to respond to such a protest, how to be aligned with human rights and with international law," Khalil told AFP in an interview.

"They chose the total opposite. They chose brutality. They chose repression," he said.

Some Jewish groups on social media had opposed Khalil's return. A spokesperson for Columbia said the college is "committed to rigorous debate, inquiry, and respectful dialogue across differing perspectives."

"Columbia supports the right of faculty members to organize academic events. An invitation to speak does not signify university endorsement of a speaker's views," they said in a statement carried by US media.

World

Local Ukraine Ceasefire Holds for Second Day

A woman walks on a sidewalk beneath anti-drone nets stretched over a street during a local ceasefire related to evacuation efforts in Oleshky, in Kherson, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)
A woman walks on a sidewalk beneath anti-drone nets stretched over a street during a local ceasefire related to evacuation efforts in Oleshky, in Kherson, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)
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Local Ukraine Ceasefire Holds for Second Day

A woman walks on a sidewalk beneath anti-drone nets stretched over a street during a local ceasefire related to evacuation efforts in Oleshky, in Kherson, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)
A woman walks on a sidewalk beneath anti-drone nets stretched over a street during a local ceasefire related to evacuation efforts in Oleshky, in Kherson, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)

A US-brokered local ceasefire in southern Ukraine was holding for a second day, both sides said on Wednesday, as hopes grew that vital food and medicine would be able to reach stranded residents.

Locals in the city of Oleshky, under Russian occupation in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, have faced food, water and medicine shortages for months, caught in the crossfire between both sides.

Some of the estimated 2,000 still there had resorted to hunting and eating pigeons, former residents who are still in touch with those in the city told AFP.

The human rights ombudsmen of both Russia and Ukraine said Wednesday that the truce, which came into effect early Tuesday morning, was still holding.

"30 hours of the ceasefire in Oleshky have passed without a single incident," said Ukraine's Dmytro Lubinets.

"No incidents have been recorded in the 30 hours of the ceasefire in Oleshky," Russia's Yana Lantratova said in a similarly worded statement.

The planned truce was announced by US First Lady Melania Trump after months of mounting international concern over the fate of residents in the city.

It remains unclear how many citizens will choose to leave, or what route they will have to take.

Crossing the frontline -- marked by the Dnipro river -- is all but impossible, and Russian-installed officials have indicated they could have to travel through Russian-occupied Crimea.

Russian officials said most of those who wanted to flee had already done so.

A senior Ukrainian official also told AFP that many people in the city wanted to stay, so the ceasefire operation was designed to allow humanitarian supplies into the city.

Oleshky was captured by Russian forces as the start of their 2022 invasion.

David Arakhamia, a Ukrainian lawmaker who took part in peace negotiations with Russia in 2022, described the ceasefire as the "biggest de-escalation since 2022".

Previous short-lived truces in the war -- such as to mark Orthodox Easter -- have seen drop-offs in aerial attacks but been marred by accusations of widespread violations by both sides.