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Oman says US-Iran talks end with ‘significant progress’ but no deal reached – Middle East live

As yet there has been no immediate comment from the Trump administration after the conclusion of indirect talks between the US and Iran in Geneva today. We’ll be sure to bring you any word from Donald Trump or US officials as we get it. We have, however, heard from Iran, with foreign minister Abbas Araghchi telling reporters that “good progress” was made on the nuclear issue and sanction relief in this round of talks – but key differences remain. He described the talks as “one of our most intense and longest rounds of negotiations”, and said the two sides had begun to discuss “the elements of an agreement”. Araghchi confirmed that further contacts would take place in less than a week. A reminder that on 19 February Trump issued a 10-15 day deadline for Tehran to reach a “meaningful deal” with Washington, which would bring us to next Friday, 6 March. Here’s the full text of Araghchi’s statement: Today I can say that one of our most serious and longest rounds of negotiations took place. The meeting lasted for about four hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. These talks were held indirectly and with the mediation of the Omani foreign minister, and in some parts [IAEA chief Rafael] Grossi also conveyed the discussions between the two sides. His presence was useful from a technical point of view. The Omani foreign minister also played an active role, as in the past. Overall, during these long and very intensive hours, good progress was made and we entered into a serious examination of the elements of an agreement; both in the nuclear field and in the sanctions field. On some issues, understandings have come very close. Of course, there are still differences of opinion, which is natural, but compared to the past, both sides are more serious about reaching a negotiated solution. It was agreed that, starting Monday, technical teams in Vienna and at the International Atomic Energy Agency will begin technical expert reviews to set some technical issues within a specific framework and then adapt them to the demands and political considerations of both sides. It was also decided that the next round of negotiations will be held in the near future—probably in less than a week.

Bangladesh court requests Interpol red notice for Labour MP Tulip Siddiq

A court in Bangladesh has ordered officials to request an Interpol red notice for the British Labour MP Tulip Siddiq over a corruption case linked to the allocation of government land in Dhaka. Bangladesh’s anti-corruption commission has alleged Siddiq used her relationship with her aunt, the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, to influence the allocation of a plot of state-owned land in Dhaka’s Gulshan district to a private company. Siddiq has rejected the claim as baseless and politically motivated. Siddiq, the MP for Hampstead and Highgate, was convicted in absentia last year when a court in Dhaka found she was complicit in the allocation of state land which British lawyers have since condemned. She has been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in Bangladesh over related corruption convictions, carried out in her absence, and faces a combined six-year sentence across multiple cases involving her aunt and other family members. She has rejected the rulings and allies have condemned the rulings as flawed. The Labour MP has denied the charges, claiming that much of the evidence being presented by prosecutors was forged. Red notices are requests distributed to police forces worldwide, not international arrest warrants. They do not automatically require action and individual countries can decide whether to enforce them. The UK does not have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh, which would make any attempt to return Siddiq to face proceedings there complicated. Siddiq resigned as a Treasury minister last year, saying the controversy risked distracting from the UK Labour government’s work, though she denied wrongdoing. Any Interpol request would be subject to review, and the absence of an extradition framework means there is no immediate pathway to enforcement. But the symbolism of a red notice carries weight. The legal action comes after leading British lawyers criticised the early stages of Siddiq’s trial in Bangladesh over serious due-process concerns. They said she was denied basic rights such as access to legal representation and a meaningful opportunity to answer the allegations. The group of lawyers including Robert Buckland KC, a former Tory justice secretary, and the former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve, wrote a letter to Bangladesh’s high commissioner in the UK, Abida Islam, saying a lawyer Siddiq had instructed to represent her was put under house arrest and faced threats to his daughter. “Such a process is artificial and contrived and an unfair way of pursuing a persecution,” they wrote. The interim government’s stated priorities have been to pursue legal action against Hasina and senior figures from her former government over alleged corruption and human rights abuses during her 15 years in power. Hasina has remained in exile in India since her fall from power last August and the country has yet to respond to extradition requests by Bangladesh for her to return to serve her sentence.

EU opens up funding to guarantee abortion rights across bloc

EU states will be able to tap into a social fund to help citizens access safe abortions, in an announcement hailed as a “victory for women”. The roots of Thursday’s announcement go back to a long campaign for the European Commission to create a funding mechanism that would allow women from countries with near-total bans on abortion, such as Malta and Poland, to go where it is legal. At the heart of the My Voice, My Choice campaign was the assertion that women across the 27 member states should have equal access to legal, safe abortions. More than 1.2 million people signed up to the initiative, forcing the commission to reply. The proposal was backed by a majority of MEPs in December. The commission said countries would be able to draw on already allocated funds for social services to support travel and access to abortion care. “This is groundbreaking,” said Hadja Lahbib, the EU’s commissioner for equality. “This decision will change lives.” The aim was to reduce the 500,000 unsafe abortions that took place in Europe every year, she said. “This is half a million women at risk, half a million women traumatised, half a million women who may carry lifelong consequences, and this is half a million too many,” added Lahbib. “We live, of course, unfortunately, in a time when women’s bodies have become political battlefields, when rights are being rolled back around the world. But Europe is standing firm.” The EU has seen a surge in support for far-right parties, many of which oppose abortion. Olivier Bault of Ordo Iuris, a Polish anti-abortion group that championed a near-blanket ban in 2020, told Reuters the EU announcement impinged on countries’ rights to set their own health policies. “Using the European social fund, arguing that it can be used for healthcare purposes, means making a joke of Europeans’ national laws,” he said. But Nika Kovač, the coordinator of the My Voice, My Choice campaign, said: “For the first time, the commission confirms unequivocally that EU funds can be used to guarantee access to safe abortion care ー particularly for women in vulnerable situations, regardless of where they come from in Europe. “Today is a victory for women in Europe. This is not symbolic. It is a political commitment to women’s rights.” While campaigners were disappointed that the commission had stopped short of allocating new financial resources, they embraced what they saw as a new path toward guaranteeing women’s rights. “Member states must now use the pathway that was created,” said Kovač. Campaigners said their work was far from done, noting that they would continue to push the commission to provide additional, dedicated funding for abortions. They also called on the commission to be swift in providing clear instructions to member states on how they could access the funds and in creating a means for women to access the scheme across the bloc. Manon Aubry, a leftwing French MEP, said: “We’re going to fight until not a single woman is dying in Europe because she cannot access abortion.”

US-Iran nuclear talks break up without a deal as risk of war looms

High-stakes talks between the US and Iran over the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme ended on Thursday without a deal, as the White House weighs a military operation that would mark its largest intervention in the Middle East in decades. The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, claimed that “good progress” had been made at the talks and Omani mediators predicted negotiations would reconvene at a technical level next week in Vienna. But there was no immediate evidence to support suggestions that the two sides had drawn closer on the fundamental issues of Iran’s right to enrich uranium and the future of its highly enriched uranium stocks. Nonetheless both Iranian and Omani mediators sought to cast the talks in a hopeful light, likely seeking to avert a US threat to launch strikes from its fleet of aircraft and warships that have massed in the region. Araghchi, described the talks as “one of our most intense and longest rounds of negotiations”. He confirmed that further contacts would take place in less than a week. The indirect talks in Geneva were held in two sessions, with reports that the US team led by Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, had been disappointed by the proposals put forward by Iran. The brevity of the second session of talks also appeared ominous, observers said. Iranian officials rounded on reports in US media that suggested Tehran would be required to end enrichment and allow its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to leave Iran. At one point, to the frustration of Tehran’s team, Witkoff had to break off his talks with Araghchi, to drive across the Swiss city to meet Ukrainian negotiators. The Omani mediators rejected talk of a breakdown, claiming new and creative ideas were being exchanged with an unprecedented openness in what was being billed as a third decisive round of indirect consultations. The US is demanding permanent Iranian guarantees on uranium enrichment and inspection mechanisms that will satisfy Washington that Tehran will never be able to build a nuclear weapon, a goal it has always denied. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has also said Iran’s refusal to discuss its ballistic missile programme is a problem, prompting Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, to complain about inconsistencies in the US negotiating demands. The talks are being held against the backdrop of Trump’s unprecedented buildup of US assets in the region, including two aircraft carrier strike groups, attack aircraft, plane-refuelling equipment and submarines equipped with Tomahawk missiles. At heart of the talks is whether the US will try to debar Tehran from all uranium enrichment except at a minimal level, such as for medical purposes at the Tehran research reactor – a five-megawatt unit dating back to 1967 and supplied by the US for the production of medical isotopes. The right to enrich uranium domestically has long been seen as an absolute symbol of Iranian national sovereignty, and was conceded by the US in the 2015 nuclear deal. Some of the dispute about enrichment can be deferred since Trump claimed that Iran’s three main nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan had been obliterated by US bunker busting bombs last June, making it technically impossible to enrich uranium in high quantities for the foreseeable future. Tehran refused to allow the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the scale of the damage to the sites since the US attack. Rubio said on Wednesday: “They’re not enriching right now, but they’re trying to get to the point where they ultimately can.” A US demand that the three facilities be permanently dismantled would conflict with Iran’s proposal that low-level enrichment should be permitted at under UN supervision, possibly after three to five years. The US did not previously object to such a plan. A further impasse lies in the fate of Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% purity, close to nuclear weapons grade. The IAEA says Tehran has yet to identify the whereabouts of a stockpile of 400kg –enough to build five to six bombs similar in power to that which destroyed Nagasaki in 1945. The IAEA also estimated in May last year that Iran had 8,000kg of uranium enriched to 20% or below. The highly enriched stockpile could be down-blended in Iran, as Tehran proposes, or exported to Russia or the US. It would be a major Iranian concession for its entire 8,000kg stockpile to be sent to the US, even if it led to a swathe of US and UN economic sanctions being lifted. One Iranian official in Geneva insisted: “The principles of zero enrichment for ever, dismantling of nuclear facilities and transferring uranium stocks to the US is completely rejected.” Trump now has the military assets in place to strike Iran either as part of an extended assault designed to enforce regime change, or to execute a more targeted strike designed to force Tehran into a more flexible negotiating position. Trump’s coercive negotiating deadlines have always been flexible, but his military commanders will not want to keep such a large and expensive concentration of forces on a leash for much longer. Trump is under domestic pressure to show that he has not taken the US down a negotiating blind alley, with Democrats demanding a vote in Congress on what they are describing as his war of choice. An Associated Press poll this week found that 56% of Americans did not trust Trump to make the right decision to use military force outside the US. The director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, has moved centre stage in the talks since his imprimatur is needed to convince Washington that Iran’s guarantees on future low-level enrichment can be technically verified. Tehran is also insisting it will not negotiate on non-nuclear issues. It has ruled out making its ballistic missile programme or its support for “resistance groups” across the Middle East part of the discussions. It describes its ballistic missiles, some with a range of 1,300 miles (2,000km), as purely defensive. Rubio said on Wednesday that the ballistic missile programme would have to be addressed at some point, an admission that the subject may not be on the immediate agenda, but could not be disbarred from later talks. He said: “Iran refuses to discuss the range of its missiles with us or anyone else, and this is a big problem for us. Iran has missiles that increase their range every year, and this could be a threat to the United States because the range of the missiles may reach American soil.” Its short-range missiles could also hit US bases in the region, he noted.

Cuba vows to fight ‘terrorist aggression’ after attack from US-registered boat

Cuba has vowed to defend itself against any “terrorist and mercenary aggression”, a day after border guards said they had killed four exiles on a Florida-registered speedboat that opened fire on a patrol. Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, wrote on X that the Caribbean country will “defend itself with determination and firmness” after the incident in which six other people on the boat were injured. The incident has the potential to crank up tensions between Washington and Havana, which have been at at odds since US forces seized Cuba’s key ally, the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, and the Trump administration imposed an oil blockade on the island in January. But talks between the two countries are understood to continue, and both governments appeared keen to calm the situation. Díaz-Canel preceded his comments by writing: “Cuba does not attack nor threaten.” On Thursday, the Miami Herald reported that US officials had met with former Cuban president Raúl Castro’s grandson, on the sidelines of Caricom, the annual meeting of Caribbean leaders, in St Kitts and Nevis. Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, 41, does not have an official role in the Cuban government, but remains close to his grandfather, who holds huge sway in the country’s power structure. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who was attending the Caricom session, said the US government had nothing to do with the incident and told reporters: “We’re still gathering facts.” But what facts there are remain sketchy. The assault happened among a network of keys east of the tourist beach of Varadero off the island’s northern coast, according to Cuba’s ministry of the interior. The boat, a small centre-console speedboat, appears to have come from the Florida Keys and was allegedly carrying arms. One of the men who died, Michel Ortega Casanova, had spoken of wanting to liberate he island, an associate told AFP. “His goal was to go and fight against a criminal and murderous narco-tyrannical [government], to see if that would spark the people to rise up,” said Wilfredo Beyra, head of the Cuban Republican party in Tampa. There is a long history of exiles trying to spark uprisings against Cuba’s communist government. Cuban authorities said the occupants fired on the border guards when they were intercepted, injuring the Cuban commander and one guard. The ministry of the interior said it had already picked up one further member of the group who had flown to the island to meet the boat, and who had “confessed”. The boat appears to have been a 24ft Pro-Line, usually used to fish in coastal waters, and may have been stolen. To experts, it seems an unlikely craft to attempt a seaborne landing of Cuba, more than 90 miles away from Florida, given that the 10 occupants would have been a tight fit and the boat didn’t have a particularly powerful engine. The Cuban authorities say the survivors were all Cuban residents in the US who now stand accused of intending to “carry out an infiltration for the purposes of terrorism”. The ministry also said they all had criminal records in Cuba, and were carrying assault rifles, handguns, molotov cocktails and other military-style gear. Several of them were apparently being held at a hospital in Santa Clara, about 150 miles east of Havana, which was under heavy guard by interior ministry troops, Reuters reported. “There is a lot of Sturm und Drang [over this] in Miami,” said a leading figure in the exile community. There are also concerns among some exiles that US efforts at regime change will be damaged by such a freelance attack. “There are some corners of the Cuban exile community declaring two days of mourning,” said Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuban and Cuban-American studies at the University of Miami. “But I’ve also seen a lot of commentary sarcastically asking: ‘What the hell were these guys thinking?’ “There is a feeling that at the moment the US is clamping down and putting the Cuban government in the corner, this could actually give the Cuban government a lifeline.” However, Bustamante went on to point out that “a maritime raid is how the Cuban revolution got started”. The Granma, the boat that carried Fidel and Raúl Castro as well as Che Guevara and 79 others from Mexico in 1956, now sits in open display at Havana’s Museum of the Revolution.

Anxiety mounts across Middle East amid fears of US-Iran war

Anxiety is growing over a potential war between Iran and the US in the Middle East, with embassies evacuating staff and airlines cancelling flights as tensions mount. As critical talks over Iran’s nuclear programme entered their second round on Thursday night, and a vast US military buildup continued in the Middle East, the Trump administration warned of drastic consequences if Iranian negotiators failed to make significant concessions. Citizens of countries in the Middle East are bracing themselves for the possibility of regional war once again, following the numerous conflicts that have broken out since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing Israeli war on Gaza. In Lebanon, all eyes are on Hezbollah, as war weary citizens fear the Iran-backed proxy group could enter aany war between Washington and Tehran. Israel has said in no uncertain terms that all of Lebanon would suffer if Hezbollah attacked, passing the Lebanese government a message that said critical infrastructure such as Beirut airport would be bombed. Elsewhere in the region, citizens have been left to read the tea leaves themselves, trading interpretations of major news events as indications that war will or will not happen. Many have taken the decision by foreign countries to call on their citizens and diplomats to evacuate Iran and to take precautions when visiting surrounding countries as an ominous sign that escalation is imminent. Australia said on Wednesday it had told dependants of diplomats in Israel and Lebanon to leave the two countries. The Australian government has also offered voluntary departures to dependants of diplomats in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan amid what the foreign ministry described as a “deteriorating security situation in the region”. The US pulled non-essential officials and eligible family members from its embassy in Lebanon earlier this week, citing a review of the “security environment”. Brazil recommended last week that its citizens leave Iran, after a similar alert to its citizens in Lebanon in January. Its government last year recommended that Brazilians did not travel to the two countries. In Lebanon, people began taking precautions to prepare for a potential war, delaying travel so they would not be stranded outside the country, as well as stocking up on essential goods. The memory of the 13-month war between Lebanon and Israel that killed about 4,000 people and displaced more than a million looms large in the economically beleaguered country. For weeks, heightened fears of a military conflict between the US and Iran have prompted airlines to suspend flights to and over countries in the region. KLM said on Wednesday it would temporarily suspend flights between Amsterdam and Tel Aviv as of 1 March. The Dutch arm of the airline group Air France KLM did not explicitly cite the US-Iranian tensions on Wednesday, but said in a statement it was not “commercially or operationally feasible” to operate flights to the Israeli city. The Middle East has suffered intermittent military conflict on a region-wide scale since the 7 October attack, including a 12-day war between Iran and Israel, the occasional back-and-forth bombing between Houthis and the Israelis, and Israel’s bombing of Syria. During the 12-day war in June, much of the Middle East was grounded as airlines cancelled their flights across the region. Each night, people in Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon watched as Iranian ballistic missiles raced across their skies, occasionally exploding mid-air and landing in their backyards. The repercussions of another war between the US and Iran, which could spill overto Israel and Iranian-backed groups across the region, extend to people’s livelihoods in the region. Many, particularly Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, are heavily dependent on tourism – any renewed bout of conflict would further hobble their already crippled tourism sectors. People in the region have been watching unfolding talks in Geneva with anxiety, and sharing updates and statements from Tehran and Washington across family WhatsApp chats. The US president, Donald Trump, and his officials maintain that Iran is rebuilding its nuclear weapons programme, and must stop. JD Vance, the vice-president, told reporters on Wednesday: “The principle is very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.” Of the negotiations, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said: “I would say that the Iranian insistence on not discussing ballistic missiles is a big, big problem.” Tehran has repeatedly pushed back against Trump’s bellicose rhetoric, accusing him of “big lies” and expressing hope that negotiations may pave the way for an agreement. In Lebanon, the back and forth between the two powers has felt exhausting, as people wonder if their country will once again be caught up in a war. “Can we just get it over with, whatever it is?” said one man from southern Lebanon, much of which still lies in ruins. Reuters contributed to this report

Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen calls March election amid ‘Greenland bounce’ in polls – as it happened

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen has announced general election on 24 March proposing wealth tax to fund schools, promising to secure the future of the commonwealth and pledging to hold Europe together (12:49, 12:58). The move is seen as an attempt to capitalise on recent poll gains after Frederiksen succeeded in rallying European allies in defence of Greenland amid continuing interest from US president Donald Trump (13:22, 13:57). In other news, US and Ukrainian negotiators held another round of talks in Geneva about the proposed “prosperity deal” designed to help with the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine in case of a peace settlement with Russia (9:47, 11:20, 14:30). Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán has urged the European Union to form a “fact-finding mission” to inspect the Druzhba pipeline amid escalating tension with Ukraine (11:48). Swedish and Nordic energy infrastructure operators were told step up their readiness in case of any possible acts of sabotage or disruption in response to a recent incident in Poland (11:37, 12:03, 14:21). A post-Brexit treaty permitting free movement between the British enclave of Gibraltar and Spain is set to be signed next month and come into force in April (16:55). Norway’s 89-year-old King Harald who fell ill while on holiday in Spain was expected to be discharged from hospital today (14:07). And that’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today. If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Danish PM calls an early election seeking ‘Greenland bounce’

Denmark’s prime minister has called an early election to take advantage of a “Greenland bounce” after Donald Trump’s threats to invade the Arctic territory. Mette Frederiksen, who has been in office since 2019, is required by Danish law to call an election by 31 October. Setting a date with eight months to go appears to be an attempt to ride improved poll ratings after disastrous local elections in November that saw her Social Democrats lose control of Copenhagen for the first time in a century. Polls last month showed that her party appeared to be gaining momentum, attributed in part to its handling of the crisis over Greenland. Frederiksen has also pledged a wealth tax to fund schools. After hinting at an announcement on social media, she entered the Danish parliament on Thursday, beaming and sharing hugs with colleagues, including the Greenlandic politician Aaja Chemnitz, before passing a note to the speaker requesting the floor for a special statement. “Winter has finally let go and the days are getting longer and brighter. It will soon be spring – and the Danes will soon be going to the polls,” she said, announcing the 24 March vote. Speaking before a packed chamber, Frederiksen said it would be a “decisive” election for Denmark and the future of Europe, pledging to rearm and “stand on our own feet”. “Dear Danes, today I have asked his majesty the king to call an election for the Folketing,” she said. “Whether I will continue to be your prime minister depends on how strong a mandate you give the Social Democrats.” Frederiksen’s profile on the international stage has risen considerably over the past two months in which she has rallied European leaders in the face of what could have been an existential threat to the Nato alliance over Greenland. Other centre-left and liberal politicians have gained a boost in opposing Trump, including the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, who has faced down the US president’s threats to annex its northern neighbour. Frederiksen said Denmark would have to redefine its relationship with the US, which had been seen as its closest ally. Denmark and Greenland, a former colony that is now largely autonomous but has its foreign and security policy run from Copenhagen, are talking to the US about Arctic security. Frederiksen said: “This will be a decisive election, because it will be in the next four years that we as Danes and as Europeans will really have to stand on our own feet. We need to define our relationship with the United States, and we must rearm to ensure peace on our continent. “We must stick together in Europe, and we must secure the future of the Danish commonwealth.” The commonwealth includes the Faroe Islands. Frederiksen’s stance on Greenland appears to have worked in her favour domestically. A poll by Megafon for TV2 last month found that support for the Social Democrats had risen to 22.7% of the vote and a projected 41 seats, up from 32 seats in early December. In November, before Trump’s renewed threats on Greenland, Frederiksen’s party suffered widespread defeats across the country. The latest polling would put the red bloc – including Frederiksen’s Social Democrats and smaller leftwing parties – on 87 seats, more than the 71 of the current government. Peter Thisted Dinesen, a politics professor at the University of Copenhagen, said US pressure had had a “rallying” effect on Frederiksen. “The Greenland crisis has arguably aided her by conveying her ability to steer the country through an international crisis,” he added. “The Social Democrats are faring better in the polls than after the local elections and have been presenting a significant number of new initiatives targeting different voter groups.” Dinesen said the initiatives included Fødevarechecken, a food support scheme. “The polls indicate it might have had some effect,” he said, noting that the rightwing nationalist Danish People’s party had dropped in the polls. Announcing plans for a wealth tax to generate 6bn kroner (£700m) for primary schools, Frederiksen told parliament: “A wealth tax should take the edge off inequality and create a better balance in our country.” She also proposed to abolish property tax for homes worth less than 1m kroner. In her speech, Frederiksen thanked the foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who is leader of the Moderates, and the defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, leader of the Liberals, for their work in her coalition, joking: “When an elephant and a camel can become friends, so can political opponents.” But she said she would be keeping her options open for potential coalition partners after the election: “Could it be a choice over the political middle again? Yes.”