Jon Gambrell | AP News
Planned negotiations between Iran and the United States this weekend over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program have been postponed, Oman announced Thursday. A message online from Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi made the announcement in a post on the social platform X. “For logistical reasons we are rescheduling the US Iran meeting provisionally planned for Saturday May 3rd,” he wrote. “New dates will be announced when mutually agreed.”
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Reuters
Iran accused the United States on Thursday of “contradictory behavior and provocative statements” after Washington warned Tehran of consequences for backing Yemen’s Houthis and imposed new oil-related sanctions on it in the midst of nuclear talks. Washington and Tehran have been conducting negotiations over the past month on a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of financial sanctions. A fourth round of talks is due to be held in Rome on Saturday.
Ryan Chua | Bloomberg
The US imposed sanctions on six companies based in Iran and China for their alleged role in securing ingredients for Tehran’s ballistic missiles, ramping up pressure on Tehran even as the Trump administration seeks a new deal to limit its nuclear program. The Treasury Department said the Iran-based trading company Saman Tejarat Barman worked with a network of five Chinese suppliers to acquire chemicals for missile propellants on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
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Giorgio Leali and Laura Kayali | Politico
German Social Democrats are dismayed by calls from French President Emmanuel Macron and incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to discuss how French nuclear weapons could protect Europe. "Nuclear deterrence depends above all on credibility, and so it is not wise to debate it publicly,” said German lawmaker Nils Schmid, the Social Democrats’ foreign policy spokesperson, during a Tuesday visit to Paris… the center-left Social Democratic Party, part of Merz's ruling coalition alongside his center-right Christian Democrats, argue that there is no need to look for alternatives to the U.S. because Trump has not indicated he plans to pull out of NATO and abandon Europe.
Vira Kravchuk | Euromaidan
Russia indicated for the first time that it might be willing to discuss American presence at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) as part of broader peace negotiations, marking a potential shift in Moscow’s position on the facility’s control. The ZNPP, Europe’s largest nuclear power station, has been under Russian control since the early stages of the full-scale war but remains a critical infrastructure asset for both countries. Just days earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had rejected any possibility of transferring the plant to US and Ukrainian control, an arrangement reportedly included in the Trump administration’s peace proposal for Ukraine.
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TurDef Global Defense News
Admiral Ercüment Tatlıoğlu, Commander of the Turkish Naval Forces, declared that Türkiye intends to build and export MİLDEN submarines and build a nuclear-powered submarine during an interview with Warships International Fleet Review. In the interview by Cem Devrim Yaylalı, Tatlıoğlu detailed the future vision of the Turkish Navy… “we preserve and develop the submarine base for future generations after the Reis Class submarines. Via it we will also take a crucial step towards constructing nuclear-powered submarines, essential for our long-term submarine deterrence capability and vision of being a mid-scale power with global influence.”