Russian President Vladimir Putin has discussed Iran’s nuclear programme with the visiting leader of Oman, Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, the Kremlin has said, as the diplomatic shuttling around the edges of Iran-US nuclear talks continues apace.

Oman has been mediating between Iran and the United States as US President Donald Trump seeks an agreement that would curb Iran’s nuclear programme, which Washington believes is aimed at developing a nuclear weapon – something that Iran denies.

“This topic was touched on … in the context of mediation efforts by Oman,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a briefing at the Kremlin on Tuesday.

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov also said both sides “discussed the progress of negotiations between Iranian and American representatives”, according to remarks carried by Interfax.

“We will see what the result will be. We maintain close contact with our Iranian colleagues. Where we can, we help,” Ushakov was quoted as saying.

Trump has threatened to bomb Iran unless a deal is reached. Iran has said there can be no deal under threat of bombardment.

Russia signed a strategic partnership treaty with Iran in January and is also trying to improve relations with the Trump administration.

Moscow has a role in nuclear talks with Iran as a signatory to a previous landmark 2015 nuclear deal that Trump abandoned during his first term as US president in 2018 – a move that prompted Iran to breach its terms a year later.

Russia has warned that any US military action against Iran would be illegal.

In televised comments, Putin was shown telling the sultan that Russian energy companies were interested in developing relations with Oman.

Meanwhile, Putin announced plans to stage a summit with the Arab League group of states later this year as Moscow searches for new partners as it continues its three-year offensive on Ukraine.

Slapped with sweeping Western sanctions after sending troops into Ukraine, Russia has turned towards Asian, African and Arab countries for political and economic ties.

“We plan to hold a summit between Russia and Arab countries this year,” Putin told the Omani leader.

“Many of our friends in the Arab world support this idea,” he added, inviting Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said to the summit, without specifying the date and location.

The visit comes days after Putin hosted Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Moscow for talks on Syria and the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip. Doha is a key mediator between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.

The Gulf states are gaining ever-growing diplomatic influence as mediators in negotiations to resolve the world’s most pressing crises, which have claimed thousands of lives, such as the conflict in Ukraine and Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

A third round of negotiations between Tehran and Washington is scheduled to take place in Oman on Saturday.

Ahead of the visit, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is set to visit China on April 23 at the invitation of Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday.

The two sides will discuss bilateral relations and international and regional hot-spot issues of common concern, ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference.

The visit is believed to have great significance for deepening political mutual trust between the two countries, Guo told reporters.

Araghchi previously visited China, which was a signatory to the since-abandoned 2015 agreement brokered by world powers that both reined in Tehran’s nuclear programme and provided it with substantial financial relief, in December.

During a trip to Moscow last week, Araghchi told state TV that Tehran always closely consults with its friends, Russia and China, over nuclear issues.

Ronen Bar fires latest salvo in ongoing showdown with Israeli PM that has divided country.

Israel’s spy chief has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to fire him for his refusal to commit illegal acts aimed at protecting the leader’s personal and political interests.

Ronen Bar, chief of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, made the assertion in an affidavit to the Supreme Court on Monday. Netanyahu’s move last month to dismiss Bar was suspended by the court pending an investigation, and the ensuing tussle has provoked large protests, with crowds accusing the prime minister of endangering democracy.

Netanyahu said he would sack the spy chief due to a breakdown in trust, supposedly linked to Hamas’s attack in October 2023 that led to the Gaza war.

However, Bar said Netanyahu’s decision was motivated by a series of events between November 2024 and February 2025.

In the unclassified part of the court submission, Bar said Netanyahu had told him “on more than one occasion” that he expected Shin Bet to take action against Israelis involved in antigovernment demonstrations, “with a particular focus on monitoring the protests’ financial backers”.

The Shin Bet head also said he had refused to sign off on a security request aimed at relieving Netanyahu from testifying at an ongoing corruption trial in which he faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of public trust.

Netanyahu’s bid to oust Bar came as Shin Bet was investigating financial ties between the prime minister’s office and Qatar, a key mediator in the Gaza war. Critics say the firing is tainted by a conflict of interest and was meant to derail that inquiry.

Shin Bet also happened to be carrying out an inquiry based on suspicion that the government had ignored warnings in advance of Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, when the armed Palestinian group killed more than 1,100 people and took about 250 captive.

More than 50 of them remain in Gaza. Netanyahu and the hardline Zionist parties that support his government have faced harsh criticism for their failure to agree to a ceasefire and the return of the remaining prisoners.

Israel’s onslaught on Gaza has killed more than 51,000 people, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health.

Netanyahu’s office has said Bar’s affidavit was “full of lies”, and later responded to several of his claims, stating that he had “failed miserably” when Hamas attacked Israel.

It also denied that the move to sack Bar was aimed at thwarting the so-called “Qatargate” investigation.

“The dismissal was not intended to prevent the investigation. Rather, the investigation was intended to prevent the dismissal,” it said.

Netanyahu’s move to sack Bar was suspended by the Supreme Court after political watchdogs and opposition lawmakers argued the dismissal was unlawful.

The bid to unseat the spy chief and the continuing fight have further fuelled the protests over the government’s failure to secure the captives from Gaza.

Bar has accepted Shin Bet’s failure to stop Hamas’s attack, saying on Monday that he would “soon announce the date of my resignation”.

Residential buildings among structures targeted in paramilitary attack on city of el-Fasher, activists say.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have again attacked el-Fasher city in the western Darfur region of Sudan, killing more than 30 people, an activist group has said.

The attack by the RSF and allied militias is the latest deadly offensive on the area, the last stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the war-torn region.

The Resistance Committees in el-Fasher said dozens of other people were wounded in the Sunday attack, which involved “heavy artillery shelling”. The RSF renewed the assault on Monday, shelling residential buildings and open markets, according to the activist group, which tracks the war.

No new casualties were immediately reported. The RSF did not immediately respond to the claims.

For over a year, the RSF has sought to wrest control of el-Fasher, located more than 800km (500 miles) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, from the SAF, launching regular attacks on the city and two major famine-hit camps for displaced people on its outskirts.

However, observers say attacks have intensified in recent months as the RSF suffered battlefield setbacks in Khartoum and other urban areas in the county’s east and centre.

El-Fasher is estimated to be home to more than one million people, including hundreds of thousands of those displaced by the fighting.

Aid ‘dangerously restricted’

The latest violence comes less than a week after a two-day attack by the RSF and its allied militias on e-Fasher, as well as the nearby Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps for internally displaced people, killed more than 400 people, according to the United Nations.

The attack forced up to 400,000 people to flee the Zamzam camp, Sudan’s largest, which has become inaccessible to aid workers, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

On Monday, the UN’s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher described the situation in the region as “horrifying”.

He said he had spoken by phone with both SAF general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF second in command general Abdelrahim Dagalo, who committed to giving “full access to get aid in”.

International aid agencies have long warned that a full-scale RSF assault on el-Fasher could lead to devastating urban warfare and a new wave of mass displacement.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has described the situation as “hell on earth” for at least 825,000 children trapped in and around el-Fasher.

The UN also warned of a catastrophic humanitarian situation.

“The humanitarian community in Sudan is facing critical and intensifying operational challenges in North Darfur,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said on Sunday.

She added that “despite repeated appeals, humanitarian access to el-Fasher and surrounding areas remains dangerously restricted”, warning that the lack of access was increasing “the vulnerability of hundreds of thousands of people”.

Nkweta-Salami called for UN and NGO actors to be granted “immediate and sustained access to these areas to ensure life-saving support can be delivered safely and at scale”.

Meanwhile, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has called for aid airdrops into the city in the face of access restrictions.

Sudan’s brutal civil war began on April 15, 2023, after a tenuous power-sharing agreement between SAF General al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, fell apart.

To date, more than 24,000 people have been killed in the fighting, according to the UN, although activists say the number is likely far higher.

Millions more have been displaced.