By MATTHEW LEE and SAMUEL PETREQUIN Associated Press
Deep divisions were apparent over the Iran war as top diplomats from the Group of Seven countries have met in France. But they agreed to call for an immediate halt to attacks against civilian populations and infrastructure after meeting Friday in France. The G7 meeting follows U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated complaints that allies have ignored or rejected requests for help confronting Iran's retaliation, including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to most international shipping. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined his G7 counterparts a day after Trump lobbed his latest round of insults at NATO countries.
President Donald Trump is delaying a diplomatic trip to China that was planned for months but began to unravel as he pressured Beijing and other world powers to form a military coalition to protect the vital Strait of Hormuz. Trump said Tuesday while meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin in the Oval Office that he would be going to China in five or six weeks' time instead of at the end of the month. Trump's visit to China is seen as an opportunity to build on a fragile trade truce between the two superpowers, but it became tangled in his effort to find an endgame to his war in Iran.
By SEUNG MIN KIM, WILL WEISSERT and BILL BARROW Associated Press
President Donald Trump relied on his gut and largely side-stepped diplomatic coordination as he made the decision to launch strikes on Iran with Israel. But now with the Iran war's economic and geopolitical consequences unfurling rapidly, the Republican president is cajoling allies and other global powers to help mop up the mess. Trump says he's asked roughly a half-dozen other countries to send warships to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic. So far, none has committed. Trump even indicated he'd use his long-planned trip to China to pressure Beijing to help with the coalition — a notion his Treasury secretary later downplayed.
Russia has condemned U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran and urged an immediate stop to the campaign and a return to diplomacy. In a Telegram post on Saturday, Russia's Foreign Ministry called the strikes preplanned and unprovoked aggression against a U.N. member state. It said the United States and Israel used Iran's nuclear program as a cover. It claimed they are really seeking regime change. Russia warned the attacks could spark humanitarian and economic disaster. It also warned of a possible radiological catastrophe, saying strikes on safeguarded nuclear sites are unacceptable. It said Moscow is ready to help broker peace.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Russia has not "broken Ukrainians" nor triumphed in its war. He spoke Tuesday four years after an invasion that has severely tested the resolve of Kyiv and its allies and fueled European fears about the scale of Moscow's ambitions. In a show of support, more than a dozen senior European officials headed to the Ukrainian capital to mark the grim anniversary. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, upended life for millions of Ukrainians, and created instability far beyond its borders. Zelenskyy said his country has withstood the onslaught by Russia's bigger and better equipped army. He added that Russian President Vladimir Putin has "not achieved his goals."
Russia's top diplomat says that Moscow will observe the limits of the last nuclear arms pact with the United States that expired last week as long as it sees that Washington does the same. The New START treaty expired Feb. 5, leaving no restrictions on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century and fueling fears of an unconstrained nuclear arms race. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that even though the U.S. hasn't responded to President Vladimir Putin's offer to maintain New START's caps for another year, Moscow will respect the treaty's limits if the U.S. observes them too.
