Iran to hold nuclear talks with three European powers in Geneva on Friday, Kyodo reports

FILE PHOTO: Iranian flag flies in front of the UN office building, housing IAEA headquarters (REUTERS)
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Updated 24 November 2024
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Iran to hold nuclear talks with three European powers in Geneva on Friday, Kyodo reports

  • A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday

DUBAI: Iran plans to hold talks about its disputed nuclear program with three European powers on Nov. 29 in Geneva, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday, days after the UN atomic watchdog passed a resolution against Tehran.
Iran reacted to the resolution, which was proposed by Britain, France, Germany and the United States, with what government officials called various measures such as activating numerous new and advanced centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium.
Kyodo said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government was seeking a solution to the nuclear impasse ahead of the inauguration in January of US President-elect Donald Trump.
A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday, adding that “Tehran has always believed that the nuclear issue should be resolved through diplomacy. Iran has never left the talks.”
In 2018, the then-Trump administration exited Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six major powers and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to violate the pact’s nuclear limits, with moves such as rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.
Indirect talks between President Joe Biden’s administration and Tehran to try to revive the pact have failed, but Trump said in his election campaign in September that “We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal.”


Trump offers to mediate Egypt-Ethiopia dispute on Nile River waters

US President Donald Trump and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, October 13, 2025. (REUTERS)
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Trump offers to mediate Egypt-Ethiopia dispute on Nile River waters

  • Egypt says ​the dam violates international treaties and could cause both droughts ⁠and flooding, a claim Ethiopia rejects

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump offered on Friday to mediate a dispute over Nile River ​waters between Egypt and Ethiopia. “I am ready to restart US mediation between Egypt and Ethiopia to responsibly resolve the question of ‘The Nile Water Sharing’ once and for all,” he ‌wrote to ‌Egyptian President ‌Abdel ⁠Fattah El-Sisi ​in ‌a letter that also was posted on Trump’s Truth Social account.
Addis Ababa’s September 9 inauguration of its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has been a source of anger ⁠in Cairo, which is downstream on the ‌Nile.
Ethiopia, the continent’s second-most ‍populous nation ‍with more than 120 million people, ‍sees the $5 billion dam on a tributary of the Nile as central to its economic ambitions.
Egypt says ​the dam violates international treaties and could cause both droughts ⁠and flooding, a claim Ethiopia rejects.
Trump has praised El-Sisi in the past, including during an October trip to Egypt to sign a deal related to the Gaza conflict. In public comments, Trump has echoed Cairo’s concerns about the water issue.