G7 foreign ministers meet in Paris to press US on Ukraine terms and Iran strikes

Foreign ministers of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States opened two days of talks in Paris on Monday, with European governments seeking to push Washington toward a fair settlement for Ukraine and to deter further US military action against Iran.

All eyes are on US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, attending both days — unlike the previous G7 ministerial in March, where he came for only one. It is also his first trip abroad since the US midterm elections. The Paris gathering is one of the final acts of France's G7 presidency, which also saw President Emmanuel Macron host Donald Trump at Evian earlier in the year. The United States takes over the G7 presidency from France in 2027.

The meeting was originally scheduled for the southern port city of Marseille before being moved to Paris at the last minute, with only scheduling reasons given for the change. Marseille will still host the launch of a network of 14 global ports uniting to combat drug trafficking, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said.

The Paris talks run in parallel with US-mediated peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in Abu Dhabi. Barrot told RTL radio that "Europeans will be represented and France will be in Abu Dhabi" to participate in these talks, reflecting European concern that Kyiv must not be pressured into disadvantageous conditions. Trump has predicted a "very big" deal with Russia covering not only the Ukraine war but "all of Europe," and Jared Kushner, the president's envoy and son-in-law, said the United States was working on "a broader European security architecture."

On Iran, Trump told reporters on Friday that "we're dealing with them now" and that Tehran "wants to make a deal very badly," but has not ruled out new strikes — including against Pickaxe Mountain, a site the United States suspects of being a nuclear facility, though Tehran denies this. European ministers are pressing for a diplomatic resolution and for shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz energy transit hub to return to normal.

On the sidelines, the French finance ministry is hosting a donor conference on Monday to raise funds for the dome protecting the Chernobyl reactor, which experienced a catastrophic accident in 1986 and was damaged in a Russian strike last year. Around 500 million euros is required, but only just over half has been raised so far, with a target of spring 2027 to secure the rest.