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Russia and Ukraine to Hold First Direct Peace Talks in over 3 Years

(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on May 12, 2025 shows a pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik bearing Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) during the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on May 9, 2024 and a picture of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky during a press conference with French President at the Elysee palace in Paris on February 16, 2024. (Photo by Mikhail KLIMENTYEV and Thibault CAMUS / POOL / AFP)
(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on May 12, 2025 shows a pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik bearing Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) during the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on May 9, 2024 and a picture of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky during a press conference with French President at the Elysee palace in Paris on February 16, 2024. (Photo by Mikhail KLIMENTYEV and Thibault CAMUS / POOL / AFP)
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Russia and Ukraine to Hold First Direct Peace Talks in over 3 Years

(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on May 12, 2025 shows a pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik bearing Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) during the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on May 9, 2024 and a picture of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky during a press conference with French President at the Elysee palace in Paris on February 16, 2024. (Photo by Mikhail KLIMENTYEV and Thibault CAMUS / POOL / AFP)
(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on May 12, 2025 shows a pool photograph distributed by Russia's state agency Sputnik bearing Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) during the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on May 9, 2024 and a picture of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky during a press conference with French President at the Elysee palace in Paris on February 16, 2024. (Photo by Mikhail KLIMENTYEV and Thibault CAMUS / POOL / AFP)

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators will meet in Istanbul on Friday for their first peace talks in more than three years as both sides come under pressure from US President Donald Trump to end Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two.

The encounter at the Dolmabahce Palace on the Bosphorus is a sign of diplomatic progress between the warring sides, who had not met face-to-face since March 2022.

But expectations for a major breakthrough, already low, were dented further on Thursday when Trump said there would be no movement without a meeting between himself and Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

Turkish Foreign Ministry sources said a meeting between Turkish, US and Ukrainian officials would take place at 0745 GMT, followed by talks between Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian delegations at 0930 GMT.

Putin on Sunday proposed direct talks with Ukraine in Türkiye, but has spurned a challenge from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to meet him in person, and instead has sent a team of mid-ranking officials to the talks.

Zelenskiy said Putin's decision not to attend but to send what he called a "decorative" lineup showed the Russian leader was not serious about ending the war. Russia accused Ukraine of trying "to put on a show" around the talks, Reuters reported.

Russia says it sees them as a continuation of the negotiations that took place in the early weeks of the war in 2022, also in Istanbul.

But the terms under discussion then, when Ukraine was still reeling from Russia's initial invasion, would be deeply disadvantageous to Kyiv. They included a demand by Moscow for large cuts to the size of Ukraine's military.

With Russian forces now in control of close to a fifth of Ukraine, Putin has held fast to his longstanding demands for Kyiv to cede territory, abandon its NATO membership ambitions and become a neutral country.

Ukraine rejects these terms as tantamount to capitulation, and is seeking guarantees of its future security from world powers, especially the United States.

The US State Department's director of policy planning Michael Anton will represent the US in the talks, said a state department spokesperson.

The Russian delegation is headed by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky and includes a deputy defense minister, a deputy foreign minister and the head of military intelligence.

Zelenskiy said on Thursday his team would be led by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and include the deputy heads of Ukraine's its intelligence services, the deputy chief of the military's general staff and the deputy foreign minister.

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World

EU to Slash Asylum Cases from 7 Nations Deemed Safe

FILE - A convoy of buses carry Syrian refugees who return home from Lebanon, arrive at the Syrian border crossing point, in Jdeidet Yabous, Syria, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
FILE - A convoy of buses carry Syrian refugees who return home from Lebanon, arrive at the Syrian border crossing point, in Jdeidet Yabous, Syria, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
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EU to Slash Asylum Cases from 7 Nations Deemed Safe

FILE - A convoy of buses carry Syrian refugees who return home from Lebanon, arrive at the Syrian border crossing point, in Jdeidet Yabous, Syria, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
FILE - A convoy of buses carry Syrian refugees who return home from Lebanon, arrive at the Syrian border crossing point, in Jdeidet Yabous, Syria, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)

The European Union on Thursday said it would drastically reduce asylum claims from seven nations in Africa, the Middle East and Asia by considering them safe countries of origin, prompting widespread outrage from human rights groups on International Migrants' Day.

An agreement between European Parliament and the European Council, or the group of the 27 EU heads of state, said that the countries would be considered safe if they lack “relevant circumstances, such as indiscriminate violence in the context of an armed conflict.”

Asylum requests by people from Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Kosovo, India, Morocco and Tunisia will be "fast-tracked, with applicants having to prove that this provision should not apply to them,” read the announcement of the agreement. “The list can be expanded in the future under the EU’s ordinary legislative procedure.”

In 2024, EU nations endorsed sweeping reforms to the bloc’s failed asylum system. The rules were meant to resolve the issues that have divided the 27 countries since well over 1 million migrants swept into Europe in 2015, most fleeing war in Syria and Iraq.

Under the Pact on Migration and Asylum, which goes into force in June 2026, people can be sent to countries deemed safe, but not to those where they face the risk of physical harm or persecution.

According to The Associated Press, Amnesty International EU advocate Olivia Sundberg Diez said the new measures were “a shameless attempt to sidestep international legal obligations" and would endanger migrants.

French MEP Mélissa Camara said the safe countries of origins concept and others agreed to by the Council and Parliament “opens the door to return hubs outside the EU’s borders, where third-country nationals are sometimes subjected to inhumane treatment with almost no monitoring” and “undoubtedly places thousands of people in exile in situations of danger.”

Céline Mias, the EU director of the Danish Refugee Council said that "we are deeply worried that this fast-track system will fail to protect people in need of protection, including activists, journalists and marginalized groups in places where human rights are clearly under attack.”

Alessandro Ciriani, an Italian MEP with the European Conservatives and Reformists group, said the designation sends a firm message that the EU has toughened its borders.

“Europe wants enforceable rules and shared responsibility. Now this commitment must become operational: effective returns, structured cooperation with third countries and real measures to support EU member states,” he said.

He said that clear delineations of safe and unsafe nations would rid the EU of “excessive interpretative uncertainty” that led to a kind of paralysis for national decision makers over border controls.

The measures also allows individual nations within the bloc to designate other countries safe for their own immigration purposes.

World

Rubio Says US Sanctioning ICC Judges for Targeting Israel

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to traveling journalists at the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport in Hamilton, Ontario, on November 12, 2025 after the G7 foreign ministers meeting. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / POOL / AFP)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to traveling journalists at the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport in Hamilton, Ontario, on November 12, 2025 after the G7 foreign ministers meeting. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / POOL / AFP)
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Rubio Says US Sanctioning ICC Judges for Targeting Israel

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to traveling journalists at the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport in Hamilton, Ontario, on November 12, 2025 after the G7 foreign ministers meeting. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / POOL / AFP)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to traveling journalists at the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport in Hamilton, Ontario, on November 12, 2025 after the G7 foreign ministers meeting. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / POOL / AFP)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the US was sanctioning two judges of the International Criminal Court for targeting Israel.

"Today, I am designating two International Criminal Court (ICC) judges, Gocha Lordkipanidze of Georgia and Erdenebalsuren Damdin of Mongolia, pursuant to Executive Order 14203," Rubio said in a statement, referring to the order President Donald Trump signed in February sanctioning the ICC, Reuters reported.

"These individuals have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel's consent," he said.

The United States and Israel are not members of the ICC.

The US sanctions in February include freezing any US assets of those designated and barring them and their families from visiting the United States.

World

US Imposes Sanctions on Vessels Linked to Iran, Treasury Website Says

A crew member raises the Iranian flag on Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1, previously named Grace 1, as it sits anchored after the Supreme Court of the British territory lifted its detention order, in the Strait of Gibraltar, Spain, August 18, 2019. REUTERS/Jon Nazca
A crew member raises the Iranian flag on Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1, previously named Grace 1, as it sits anchored after the Supreme Court of the British territory lifted its detention order, in the Strait of Gibraltar, Spain, August 18, 2019. REUTERS/Jon Nazca
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US Imposes Sanctions on Vessels Linked to Iran, Treasury Website Says

A crew member raises the Iranian flag on Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1, previously named Grace 1, as it sits anchored after the Supreme Court of the British territory lifted its detention order, in the Strait of Gibraltar, Spain, August 18, 2019. REUTERS/Jon Nazca
A crew member raises the Iranian flag on Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya 1, previously named Grace 1, as it sits anchored after the Supreme Court of the British territory lifted its detention order, in the Strait of Gibraltar, Spain, August 18, 2019. REUTERS/Jon Nazca

The United States imposed sanctions on Thursday on 29 vessels and their management firms, the Treasury Department said, as Washington continues targeting Tehran's "shadow fleet" it says exports Iranian petroleum and petroleum products, Reuters reported.

The targeted vessels and companies have transported hundreds of millions of dollars of the products through deceptive shipping practices, Treasury said.

Thursday's action also targets businessman Hatem Elsaid Farid Ibrahim Sakr, whose companies are associated with seven of the vessels cited, as well as multiple shipping companies.