GENEVA — Key European foreign ministers pressed their Iranian counterpart on Friday for swift curbs to Tehran’s nuclear program but the high-stakes diplomatic meeting in Geneva yielded no quick off-ramp from the conflict in which President Donald Trump is threatening to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. Hours of talks at a luxury hotel ended without a breakthrough, officials said, even as all the ministers came out declaring their readiness to keep talking. The clock is ticking, though: Trump has set a two-week deadline to decide whether the United States should join Israel in its barrage of nuclear targets.

Israel launched a military campaign, including airstrikes, last week vowing to cripple Iran’s nuclear facilities. Washington is now in standoff with Tehran over whether Iran should be allowed to enrich any uranium at all, even for civilian purposes.

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After Friday’s meeting, European ministers said they had pushed Tehran to restrict nuclear activities and negotiate with Washington, while Iran’s foreign minister countered that Israeli strikes must stop before Tehran resumes any bargaining with the White House.

A European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said there was no date set for a future meeting, but that officials aimed to reconvene within two weeks — before Trump’s self-imposed deadline.

Trump, however, characterized the European intervention as unhelpful. “Nah, they didn’t help,” he said Friday afternoon “Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help on this one.”

European leaders have been thrown off balance by Trump, who denied U.S. involvement in Israel’s attack only to warn days later that he may join the Israeli campaign, which has spiraled into a deadly tit-for-tat with mounting civilian casualties and a risk of inflaming the region.

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The attacks continued on Friday even as the officials sat down for talks in Geneva.

America’s traditional European partners are deeply worried that U.S. involvement would lead to a wider, unpredictable war, and wary that their nations also could be drawn in. They have been working the phones hoping to carve out a diplomatic path before U.S. strikes escalate the conflict.

Trump, who had promised to reach a deal with Iran over its nuclear program and lambasted the era of U.S. interventions in the Middle East, has since demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender.”

Despite the absence of a quick agreement, Friday’s meeting in Geneva — involving France, Britain, Germany and the European Union, which all had a central role in negotiating the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement along with Russia, China and the United States — could pave the way for a more prominent mediation role for European officials who have been sidelined under Trump.

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European officials cast the latest diplomacy as an 11th-hour scramble to influence the crisis: to extract greater concessions from Iran, whose position they believe has now been weakened, and to get Trump to back away from his threats of a bombing campaign and suggestions of regime change.

The Europeans acknowledged that it was a tall order on both fronts. It is far from clear that Trump will heed — or is even listening to — their calls for restraint. And Iran may not be willing to accept any ultimatum, officials concede.

At about midday Friday, the Europeans — France’s foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas — gathered at the German consulate in Geneva where they conferred around a table on an outdoor terrace. They met with Araghchi later Friday afternoon, and White House officials were watching the Geneva talks.

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Trump’s wavering and his two-week deadline opened a small window for the diplomatic bid by the Europeans — who share Washington’s insistence that Iran must not obtain a nuclear weapon. The meeting was coordinated with Washington, four officials familiar with the planning said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.s

“Regional escalation benefits no one and that’s why we need to keep the discussions with Tehran open,” Kallas told reporters after the talks.

The European diplomat said Friday’s talks broached the U.S. demand of zero enrichment of uranium by Iran. Tehran has said it is open to negotiating over its nuclear activities but rejects giving up all uranium enrichment, maintaining that it has the right to enrich nuclear fuel for civilian use. Iran previously pledged never to acquire nuclear weapons under the 2015 deal that Trump abandoned in 2018.

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A second official said that while previous talks contemplated allowing Iran to continue a limited amount of uranium enrichment for civilian energy purposes, the requirement now would be for “zero enrichment.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot has said the Europeans’ conditions for negotiations include the prospect of “a substantial and durable rollback of Iran’s nuclear program, of its ballistic missile program and its regional destabilization activities.”

France, Germany, Britain and the European Union were central to negotiations that resulted in the landmark 2015 deal to contain Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief under the Obama administration. After Trump abandoned the deal and reimposed U.S. sanctions, Iran gradually increased the quality and quantity of its enriched-uranium production.

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The Europeans would be instrumental to enforcing a new deal, including at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the global nuclear watchdog.

The Trump administration mostly shut out the Europeans when he came into office again this year and instead kick-started unilateral negotiations with Iran, which included promises of peace until the Israeli strikes began last week.

French President Emmanuel Macron said at a Group of Seven meeting early this week that Trump had indicated he would seek discussions to stop the hostilities. Soon after leaving the G-7, Trump denied that he was working on a “ceasefire” and warned Iranians to “immediately evacuate Tehran” — the nation’s capital with 10 million residents — putting the world on edge.

Tehran has warned it would retaliate against a U.S. attack by hitting American bases in the region.

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European calls for de-escalation have done little to move Israeli officials, who have framed the conflict as a chance to topple Iran’s leadership. Israel launched its strikes last week despite Trump’s stated ambitions for diplomacy, derailing U.S. negotiations and vowing to end Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon. Israel is widely known to possesses nuclear weapons but has never publicly acknowledged such an arsenal.

Though the Europeans all urge de-escalation and agree on restricting Iran’s nuclear program, they are not speaking with a single voice. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz this week praised the Israeli attacks and described them as “the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us.” Macron, meanwhile, warned against “regime change because nobody can say what would come after that” and asked whether anyone had learned from the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The conflict has also raised questions about an E.U. review of trade ties with Israel over its devastating war in Gaza. European officials recently had toughened their criticism of Israel. But some E.U. countries, now keen to see Iran’s capabilities targeted, appear less inclined to consider punitive action against Israel, which had been expected to be debated by the 27-nation bloc in the next few weeks.

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Israeli fighter jets continued the blitz on Iran overnight Thursday and throughout Friday, attacking sites linked to Iran’s missile systems and dozens of targets in Tehran, including a weapons research center, the Israeli military said Friday. Israel’s Army Radio reported that Israel assassinated an Iranian nuclear scientist, bringing the total number of Iranian scientists Israel claims to have killed since it launched the conflict last week to at least 11.

During an Iranian barrage Friday, some missiles broke through Israel’s vaunted air defenses and hit near government buildings by Haifa’s port, injuring about 31 people, a hospital said.

Iranian strikes hit sites in central and southern Israel, including a building bearing the logo of a military cyberdefense training center in Beersheba.

The intensifying strikes and threats have also trigerred a diplomatic scramble in the Middle East, where Iran and Israel’s neighbors are rattled by the prospect of an widening war.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi met with Barrot in Paris on Thursday and described the European talks with Iran as important for “giving diplomacy a chance to succeed” and “protecting the region.” Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty spoke with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff for the second time in a week, and separately with Araghchi, urging them to “utilize the available diplomatic channels” to halt the hostilities, the foreign ministry said Friday.

President Trump this week firmed up a trade deal with the United Kingdom, and its European Union neighbors are apparently pushing for a similarly styled deal despite fits and starts in talks.

According to reports, the EU now expects a 10% “reciprocal” tariff to be the starting point for an US-EU trade deal. The FT reported on Thursday that the EU is pushing for a deal modeled on the US-UK agreement. Trump has threatened tariffs of up to 50% on EU imports after various tariff “pauses” lapse July 9.

Meanwhile, in Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government threatened to hike tariffs by late July on US imports of steel and aluminum, weeks after Trump ballooned US levies on those metals to 50%. At the G7 this week, Trump and Carney both expressed optimism on a trade deal between the countries.

The furious push follows Trump’s recent warning that he would soon send letters setting unilateral tariff rates, raising questions about the status of negotiations and a return to his “Liberation Day” tariffs that roiled markets. Trump instituted a pause on his most punishing duties that expires July 9.

Trump also secured a small legal victory on Friday, when the Supreme Court declined to expedite a challenge from two family-owned businesses before lower courts have weighed in. Learning Resources, a family-owned toy company, had asked the high court to take the unusual step of taking up the case before an appeals court ruled.

The case is one of several legal challenges working its way through the court system.

Meanwhile, the US economy is still figuring out the effects of the tariffs. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said as the central bank held interest rates steady this week that the Fed is still waiting to see the effects of the tariffs on prices.

“We’re beginning to see some effects, and we do expect to see more of them over the coming months,” he said.

He said the Fed needs more data, saying “the pass-through of tariffs to consumer price inflation is a whole process that’s very uncertain.”

Read more: What Trump’s tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet

Here are the latest updates as the policy reverberates around the world.

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NEW DELHI/LONDON: India and the UK clinched a ‘landmark’ trade deal that will remove taxes on the export of labour-intensive products such as leather, footwear and clothing, while making imports of whisky and cars from Britain cheaper, in a bid to double trade between the two economies to USD 120 billion by 2030.

The world’s fifth and sixth-largest economies concluded the deal after three years of on-off negotiations.

The pact lowers tariffs on 99 per cent of Indian goods to zero in the UK market while allowing Indian workers to travel to the UK for work without changing Britain’s point-based immigration system.

Taxes on export of Indian clothing, frozen prawns, jewellery and gems will be cut.

And so will be the import of whisky and gin from the UK after the treaty halved the tariff to 75 per cent initially and to 40 per cent by the 10th year.

Tariffs on automotive imports will go from over 100 per cent to 10 per cent under quotas on both sides, benefiting companies such as Tata-JLR.

Indian goods that will enter the UK at zero duty include minerals, chemicals, gems and jewellery, plastic, rubber, wood, paper, textile, clothing, glass, ceramic, base metals, mechanical and electrical machinery, arms/ammunition, transport/auto, furniture, sports goods, animal products, and processed food.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the pact as a “landmark” that will “make working people and businesses better off in both our countries.”

Calling the pact “a historic milestone,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the successful conclusion of an ambitious and mutually beneficial Free Trade Agreement, along with a Double Contribution Convention “will further deepen our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, and catalyse trade, investment, growth, job creation, and innovation in both our economies”.

The two have also concluded the negotiations for the Double Contribution Convention Agreement, or social security pact. It would help avoid double contribution to social security funds by Indian professionals working for a limited period in Britain.

“The exemption for Indian workers who are temporarily in the UK and their employers from paying social security contributions in the UK for a period of three years under the Double Contribution Convention will lead to significant financial gains for the Indian service providers,” the commerce ministry said.

It added that this pact will enhance competitiveness of domestic professionals in the UK market that would create new job opportunities as well as benefit a large number of Indians working in the UK.

However, the talks for the bilateral investment treaty (BIT) are still going on. Earlier, there were plans to conclude all three simultaneously.

According to the Commerce Ministry, the FTA with the UK is a modern, comprehensive and landmark agreement which seeks to achieve deep economic integration along with trade liberalisation and tariff concessions.

It said India will gain from tariff elimination on about 99 per cent of the tariff lines (or product categories) covering almost 100 per cent of the trade value offering huge opportunities for increase in the bilateral trade between the two nations.

“The FTA provides a positive impact on manufacturing across labour and technology-intensive sectors and opens up export opportunities for sectors such as textiles, marine products, leather, footwear, sports goods and toys, gems and jewellery and other important sectors such as engineering goods, auto parts and engines and organic chemicals,” it said.

This will substantially improve Indian goods competitiveness in the UK vis-a-vis other countries.

On the services front, India will benefit in sectors such as IT/ITeS, finance, professional, and educational services.

The FTA has eased mobility for professionals including contractual service suppliers; business visitors; investors; intra-corporate transferees; partners and dependent children of intra-corporate transferees with right to work; and independent professionals like yoga instructors, musicians and chefs.

“Immense opportunities for talented and skilled Indian youth will open up in the UK which is a major global centre for digitally delivered services due to its strong financial and professional services sectors and advanced digital infrastructure,” it said.

Further, India has secured significant commitments on digitally delivered services such as architecture, engineering, computer-related and telecommunication services.

It also said that India has ensured that non-tariff barriers are suitably addressed to ensure free flow of goods and services and that they do not create unjustified restrictions to domestic exports.

Describing it as a “historic” deal, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it is the biggest deal the UK has done since leaving the EU (European Union) and the “most” ambitious India has ever done.

The deal will now go through the process of legal text formalisation to be approved by the British Parliament before it comes into force. It may take about a year for the implementation.

The pact comes at a time when global trade is facing headwinds due to the imposition of tariffs by the US.

The talks for the pact started in January 2022. Both sides held 14 rounds of talks for the conclusion of the talks.

In FTAs, two countries either eliminate or significantly reduce customs duties on maximum goods traded between them. They also ease norms for promoting trade in services and bilateral investments.

The bilateral trade between India and the UK increased to USD 21.34 billion in 2023-24 from USD 20.36 billion in 2022-23.

During April-January 2024-25, the trade in goods stood at USD 21.33 billion as against USD 20.26 billion in 2023-24. The trade gap is in the favour of India.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi speaks during a joint press conference with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Tehran, Iran, February 25, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab

Summary Iran to have talks with France, Britain Germany – E3 parties to tattered 2015 nuclear deal – in Rome on Friday

Talks aim to position participants ahead of resumption of U.S.-Iran negotiations on Saturday in Rome

Trump administration seeking new deal with Iran to curb its escalating nuclear programme

DUBAI/PARIS, April 30 (Reuters) – Iran will hold talks in Rome on Friday with European parties to their now moribund 2015 nuclear deal, its foreign minister said on Wednesday, as both sides seek to position themselves ahead of a new round of U.S.-Iranian negotiations on Saturday.

Reuters reported on Monday that Tehran had proposed meeting Britain, France and Germany, collectively known as the E3, who stuck to the 2015 deal meant to curb Iran’s nuclear activity, which unravelled in 2018 when U.S. President Donald Trump walked out of it during his first term in the White House.

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“In my opinion, the three European countries have lost their role (in the nuclear file) due to the wrong policies they have adopted. Of course, we do not want this and are ready to hold talks with them in Rome,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told state media on Wednesday.

There was initial hesitation within the E3 over concern such talks could create a parallel track and hijack the negotiations pursued by Trump’s second administration that Washington says aim to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons.

But three European diplomats told Reuters that the E3 decided it was ultimately in their interest to maintain dialogue with Iran and reaffirm how they envisaged the parameters of a new nuclear deal.

Foreign ministry political directors were meeting U.S. officials in Berlin on Wednesday to be briefed on previous rounds of U.S.-Iranian talks and prepare for the Rome meeting, and will head there on Friday, two diplomats said.

Iran is looking to build on the momentum of nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration that resumed in Oman on Saturday and after its talks with Russia and China last week. U.S. and Iranian negotiators will reconvene in Rome on Saturday.

Iran’s approach to the E3 suggests it is keeping its options open but also wants to assess where the Europeans stand on the possible reimposition of United Nations sanctions against Tehran before October, known in diplomatic circles as the “snapback mechanism”, when a resolution ratifying the 2015 accord expires.

EUROPEAN-IRANIAN TENSIONS

Relations between the E3 and Iran have worsened over the last year despite sporadic meetings since last September against a backdrop of new sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic over its ballistic missile programme, its detention of foreign citizens and support for Russia in its war against Ukraine

Highlighting those tensions, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday that Paris would not think twice if the current negotiations failed about launching the snapback of sanctions, which he said would have ” devastating effects”

He accused Tehran of being on the cusp of covertly developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has long denied this, saying its accelerating uranium enrichment programme is only for civilian energy purposes.

In a letter distributed to the U.N. Security Council and seen by Reuters, Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said Barrot’s comments were “unfounded and politically irresponsible”.

He said that applying the snapback would be “legally and procedurally flawed, inadmissible, and invalid”.

“(Barrot’s) open threat to reimpose sanctions with ‘devastating effects’ on Iran’s economy constitutes a blatant act of political and economic coercion,” the letter said.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on what it described as a network based in Iran and China suspected of procuring ballistic missile propellant ingredients for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Araqchi said the fresh U.S. sanctions during negotiations sent the “wrong message”.

Trump has said he is confident of clinching a new pact that would block Iran’s path to nuclear bomb capability.

Reporting by Dubai Newsroom and John Irish; editing by Hugh Lawson and Mark Heinrich

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Indirect talks between Iran and the United States aimed at resolving a decades-long nuclear dispute have ended in Oman, Iranian state media reported, while U.S. President Donald Trump has signalled confidence in clinching a new pact that would block Iran’s path to a nuclear bomb.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held talks in Muscat through Omani mediators for around six hours, a week after a second round in Rome that both sides described as constructive.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said talks would continue next week, with another “high-level meeting” provisionally scheduled for May 3.

Ahead of the lead negotiators’ meeting, expert-level indirect talks took place in Muscat to design a framework for a potential nuclear deal.

“The expert-level negotiations have reached the stage of detailed specifics and mutual demands … the delegations are returning to their capitals for consultations,” state TV said.

An Iranian official, briefed about the talks, told Reuters earlier that the expert-level negotiations were “difficult, complicated and serious”, without elaborating.

Trump has spent the beginning of his second term in office trying to broker deals on some of the world’s biggest conflicts and crises, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s assault on Gaza and the thorny issue of Iran’s nuclear programme.

The Islamic Republic, for its part, has signalled it is keen to get sanctions relief as its economy continues to suffer, and after more than a year of military setbacks at the hands of its regional foe Israel.

“Iran remains steadfast in its principled stance on the need to end unjust sanctions and is ready to build confidence about the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters in Oman.

Trump, in an interview with Time magazine published on Friday, said “I think we’re going to make a deal with Iran”, but he repeated a threat of military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.

Shortly after Araqchi and Witkoff started indirect talks, Iranian state media reported a massive explosion at the country’s Shahid Rajaee port near the southern city of Bandar Abbas, killing at least four people and injuring hundreds. The reports suggested poor storage of chemicals may have been to blame.

MAXIMUM PRESSURE

While both Tehran and Washington have said they are set on pursuing diplomacy, they remain far apart on a dispute that has rumbled on for more than two decades.

Trump, who has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February, ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers in 2018 during his first term and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.

Since 2019, Iran has breached the pact’s nuclear curbs including “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% level that is weapons grade, according to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week Iran would have to entirely stop enriching uranium under a deal, and import any enriched uranium it needed to fuel its sole functioning atomic energy plant, Bushehr.

Tehran is willing to negotiate some curbs on its nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions, according to Iranian officials, but ending its enrichment programme or surrendering its enriched uranium stockpile are among “Iran’s red lines that could not be compromised” in the talks.

Moreover, European states have suggested to U.S. negotiators that a comprehensive deal should include limits preventing Iran from acquiring or finalising the capacity to put a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile, several European diplomats said.

Tehran insists its defence capabilities like its missile programme are not negotiable and Tehran’s clerical rulers say its missile programme poses no threat to regional countries. An Iranian official with knowledge of the talks said on Friday that Tehran sees its missile programme as a bigger obstacle in the talks.

Iran fired scores of ballistic missiles at Israel last year after Israel assassinated Iranian commanders and allied paramilitary leaders in a regional escalation sparked by the Gaza war.