Rome
CNN
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US Vice President JD Vance met senior Vatican officials on Saturday for talks that follow sharp criticism by Pope Francis of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

The Vatican said that during the meeting an “exchange of opinions” took place concerning migrants, refugees, and prisoners.

The vice president, a Catholic, has been visiting Rome with his family over the Easter weekend and attended a Good Friday service in St. Peter’s Basilica.

On Saturday morning, he met Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See Secretary of State, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister. Any meeting with Pope Francis, who is continuing to recover from double pneumonia, has not been confirmed.

Saturday’s meeting represents the first in-person talks between the Holy See and the second Trump presidency and comes amid tensions between leaders of the Catholic Church and the Trump administration.

“There was an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees, and prisoners,” according to a Vatican communique released following the meeting.

Vance’s office later released its own readout, which stated that the vice president and Parolin discussed “their shared religious faith, Catholicism in the United States, the plight of persecuted Christian communities around the world, and President Trump’s commitment to restoring world peace.”

The statement shared photos from the Vatican showing Vance smiling while greeting Parolin, Vance laughing at a table with Vatican officials, and Vance and his children walking through the Vatican alongside its famed Swiss Guards.

Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Parolin told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the “current US administration is very different from what we are used to and, especially in the West, from what we have relied on for many years.”

With regards to the Trump administration’s push for a ceasefire in Ukraine, the cardinal said the Holy See “clearly supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” and that “it is up to the Ukrainians themselves to decide what they are willing to negotiate or potentially concede from their perspective.”

Just before he was hospitalized in mid-February, Francis issued a rebuke of the Trump administration’s immigration policy and refuted the vice president’s use of a theological concept, the “ordo amoris” (“order of love” or “order of charity”), to defend the administration’s approach.

“The true ‘ordo amoris’ that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception,” the pope wrote in a letter to the US bishops.

The Vatican has also expressed concern about the USAID cuts imposed since January, while a US bishop born in El Salvador has called for Catholics to resist deportations by the Trump administration, which have included to prisons in El Salvador.

But after Catholic bishops criticized the Trump administration’s actions on immigration, Vance suggested they were motivated by their “bottom line,” as the Catholic Church receives government money to help resettle immigrants. The bishops’ conference said in response that the federal funds do not cover their costs for this work.

The Vatican statement released following the meeting with Vance on Saturday said that during the talks “hope was expressed for serene collaboration between the State and the Catholic Church in the United States, whose valuable service to the most vulnerable people was acknowledged.”

Despite any tensions, the Vatican is used to talking to leaders with whom it disagrees and the statement noted “the good existing bilateral relations between the Holy See and the United States of America, and the common commitment to protect the right to freedom of religion and conscience was reiterated.”

CNN
 — 

The Trump administration is ready to recognize Russian control of Crimea as part of the US proposal to drive an end to the war with Ukraine, an official familiar with the framework told CNN on Friday.

Crimea, southern Ukraine, has been under Russian occupation since it was illegally annexed in 2014. Four other Ukrainian regions – Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south – have also been partially occupied by Russia since its full-scale invasion in 2022.

There has been no immediate comment from Kyiv but the suggestion the US could recognize Russian control of Crimea is unlikely to be welcomed – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in March that his government would not recognize any occupied territories as Russian, calling that a “red line.”

Zelensky said at the time that the territories would “probably be one of the most sensitive and difficult issues” in peace negotiations, adding that, “for us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian. We will not go for it.”

The US proposal for an end to the war would also put a ceasefire in place along the front lines of the conflict, the source told CNN on Friday.

The framework was shared with the Europeans and the Ukrainians in Paris, France, on Thursday, the source said. It was also communicated to the Russians in a phone call between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Despite US President Donald Trump’s claim that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine in one day, American attempts to reach a peace agreement have largely stalled in the face of Russian intransigence, leading to a growing sense of frustration in the White House.

After Rubio warned Friday that the US was ready to “move on” from efforts to bring peace to Ukraine within days if there were no tangible signs of progress, Trump offered a less hardline approach, saying that Rubio was “right” but projecting more optimism about the prospects of a deal.

Pressed on a timeline for the US to walk away, Trump said: “No specific number of days, but quickly, we want to get it done.”

The source that spoke to CNN on Friday said that there are still pieces of the framework to be filled out, adding that the US plans to work with the Europeans and the Ukrainians on that next week in London.

The Trump administration is simultaneously planning another meeting between Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russians to get Moscow on board with the framework, the source said.

Russia has imposed a brutal and repressive regime on Crimea and its people over the past 11 years, human rights observers say, stomping out any sign of opposition.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has repeatedly reported on the human rights violations allegedly committed by Russia in occupied Crimea – from unlawful detentions, to sexual abuse and torture, to forcing people to send their children to Russian schools and training programs.

Russia has repeatedly denied accusations of human rights abuses, despite substantial evidence and victim testimonies.

Roughly 2.5 million people lived in Crimea before 2014 and many more would regularly visit the tourist hotspot, known for its beaches and nature reserves.

According to official data from the Ukrainian government, more than 64,000 have fled the peninsula to other parts of Ukraine since the annexation. However, Crimean NGOs estimate the number of refugees might be twice as high, as not everyone has officially registered with the government.

Meanwhile, Moscow has worked on its plan to “Russify” the peninsula. It put in place incentives to persuade Russian citizens to relocate to Crimea and the Ukrainian government estimated in 2023 that some 500,000 to 800,000 Russians had moved there permanently since it was annexed, with the number jumping sharply after the opening of the Kerch bridge that connects Crimea to Russia.

Maksym Vishchyk, a lawyer at Global Rights Compliance, a non-profit that advises the Ukrainian authorities on investigating and prosecuting international crimes, said Moscow has repeated the same pattern across other occupied territories.

“When Russia occupied the Crimean peninsula, it commenced a campaign of systematic targeting of communities or individuals it perceived as those who became an obstacle in the Russification campaign… with devastating effects on the social fabric in general, but also communities, families and individuals,” he told CNN in an interview last year.

“And Crimea has been kind of their playbook. Policies and patterns and tactics (Russia) applied in Crimea were then applied as well in other occupied territories. So, we see essentially the same patterns in all occupied territories, both since 2014 and since 2022.”

CNN
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A second round of high-level talks between US and Iranian delegations on Tehran’s nuclear program began in Rome on Saturday, amid tempered optimism about a diplomatic way forward.

Saturday’s negotiations come a week after an initial round was held in the Omani capital Muscat. Although the talks are in Italy, Oman is again as mediator between the US team, led by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and the Iranian one, led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

The two countries have had decades of animosity and long been in dispute about Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Washington wants Iran to stop production of highly enriched uranium, which it believes is aimed at building an atomic bomb. Iran this week doubled down on its right to enrich uranium, but has suggested it is willing to negotiate some compromises in return for sanctions relief to ease the pressure on its hard-hit economy.

Arriving in Rome for the meeting, Araghchi told reporters that Iran was committed to diplomacy with the US and said the opportunity for understanding must be taken.

Witkoff and Araghchi only met briefly during the first round – not since the Obama president has the US and Iran held full, direct talks.

The latest round is again a high-stakes engagement, and one that has been preceded by a flurry of diplomatic activity as allies and adversaries alike seek to both understand and potentially influence the aims of the talks.

They also come against a backdrop of hightened tensions in the Middle East. Iran’s network of proxies across the region has been weakened by Israeli attacks and US President Donald Trump has resumed the “maximum pressure” campaign of his first term against Iran.

Trump on Thursday suggested he is not eyeing imminent military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, but the threat still looms.

“I’m not in a rush to do it because I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death,” he said when asked about a New York Times report that he had waved Israel off such military action.

“I’d like to see that, that’s my first option. If there’s a second option, I think it would be very bad for Iran,” the US president added.

Ahead of the talks in Rome, Witkoff quietly met on Friday in Paris with Israel’s minister for strategic affairs and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest confidant Ron Dermer and Mossad director David Barnea.

The Israeli government favors aggressive action against, not diplomacy with, Iran. Netanyahu’s office on Thursday argued Israeli “overt and covert operations” were the reason that “Iran does not currently possess a nuclear arsenal.”

US intelligence agencies warned that Israel will likely attempt to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, CNN reported in February.

Witkoff was in the French capital with Secretary of State Marco Rubio for discussions on Ukraine, and the two discussed the upcoming Iran meeting with the so-called “E3” allies – France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

“For the Europeans, they have an important decision to make very soon on snapback – on the snapback of sanctions – because Iran is clearly out of compliance with the current deal,” Rubio said on Friday. “That’s going to be a factor in all this and that’s why it was important we talk to them about it before our talks on Saturday.”

“We’re hoping that talks continue and that they’re fruitful and that they’re – that they can lead to something,” the top US diplomat said. “We would all prefer a peaceful resolution and a lasting one.”

Araghchi visited Moscow before heading to Rome, meeting with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“We are hopeful, and we expect Russia to continue its supportive role in any new agreement,” Araghchi said in Moscow, according to the Associated Press.

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said during a visit to Iran that the talks are “in a very crucial” stage, adding, “we know we don’t have much time.”

Since the withdrawal of the US from the Iran nuclear deal during Trump’s first term, Tehran has far exceeded limits on uranium enrichment, but has maintained it is not seeking a nuclear weapon.

Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud also traveled to Tehran this week in one of the highest-level trips by a Saudi official in decades.

It was a visit to improve diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran and meant to signal that the Kingdom can play a role in de-escalation and brokering peace efforts, a source told CNN.

This source noted that the Saudis do not know what Trump plans in the talks with Iran, and that the assessment in Saudi Arabia is that they may be unpredictable and could be short-lived.

CNN’s Nic Robertson and Kareem El Damanhoury contributed to this report.