Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also warns that Israel will receive a ‘devastating and decisive response’ if it attacks Tehran.

The United States would be held responsible in the event of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites, Iran’s foreign minister has warned, after CNN reported that Israel could be preparing strikes.

Iran and the US, Israel’s closest ally, will hold a fifth round of nuclear talks on Friday amid deep disagreement over uranium enrichment in Iran, which Washington says could lead to developing nuclear bombs. Iran has consistently denied seeking a bomb and insisted its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

“Iran strongly warns against any adventurism by the Zionist regime of Israel and will decisively respond to any threat or unlawful act by this regime,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a letter addressed to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“I have called on the international community to take effective preventive measures against the continuation of Israeli threats, which if unchecked, will compel Iran to take special measures in defence of our nuclear facilities and materials,” Araghchi said.

“The nature, content, and extent of our actions will correspond and be proportionate to preventive measures taken by these international bodies in accordance with their statutory duties and obligations,” he added.

Araghchi’s remarks follow a CNN report on Tuesday that described the US as having “new intelligence suggesting that Israel is making preparations to strike Iranian nuclear facilities”.

Israel has not acknowledged any preparations, though officials up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have repeatedly threatened to strike Iran’s nuclear sites to prevent it from being able to obtain a nuclear weapon, should it choose to pursue one.

The US and Iran are due to hold indirect talks on Friday in Rome in what would be their fifth round of negotiations over a possible deal that could see Tehran limit or end its enrichment of uranium, in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Israel has repeatedly opposed such an agreement between the US and Iran.

Separately, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which reports directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Israel would receive a “devastating and decisive response” if it attacks Iran.

“They are trying to frighten us with war, but are miscalculating as they are unaware of the powerful popular and military support the Islamic Republic can muster in war conditions,” IRGC spokesperson Alimohammad Naini was quoted by state media as saying.

On Tuesday, Khamenei said US demands that Tehran stop enriching uranium are “excessive and outrageous”.

US President Donald Trump ambushed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a meeting at the White House in Washington, DC on Wednesday when he claimed that a “genocide” against white Afrikaners is taking place in South Africa. This claim has been widely discredited.

Here are some of the key moments from the meeting.

Ramaphosa came bearing golfers and a book

The South African leader appeared to have arrived at the Oval Office with hopes of mending a tricky relationship between the United States and South Africa.

Trump started the meeting by referring to Ramaphosa as a man who is, “in some circles, really respected, other circles, a little bit less respected, like all of us in all fairness”.

Trump’s love for golf is no secret and, perhaps in the hope of defusing tension, Ramaphosa brought along two of South Africa’s top golfers, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, both of whom are white. “These two guys are unbelievable,” Trump said.

Ramaphosa also presented Trump with a repository of South Africa’s golf courses, compiled in a book weighing 14kg (31 pounds) and featuring writing by Els. White businessman Johann Rupert — South Africa’s richest man — was also part of Ramaphosa’s delegation.

Trump accused South Africa of ‘white genocide’

During the meeting, Trump repeatedly claimed that genocide against white farmers is taking place in South Africa, an allegation denied by Ramaphosa.

Earlier this month, 59 white “refugees” were flown from South Africa to the US as part of a relocation plan for white South Africans devised by the Trump administration.

Trump told Ramaphosa that these were white farmers fleeing violence directed at them in South Africa. “We have many people that feel they’re being persecuted, and they’re coming to the United States,” said Trump. “People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety. Their land is being confiscated, and in many cases, they’re being killed.”

But Ramaphosa denied allegations of a “white genocide” in South Africa. “If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you, these three gentlemen would not be here,” the South African president said, referring to Els, Goosen and Rupert.

While murder is an issue in South Africa, a majority of victims are Black and are targeted by thieves, experts say, not for political reasons.

“There is no merit to Trump’s fantasy claims of white genocide,” South African historian Saul Dubow, professor of Commonwealth history at the University of Cambridge, told Al Jazeera. “South Africa is a violent country and, in economic terms, one of the most unequal societies in the world. The violence is criminal rather than political, though racial injustice inevitably forms part of the context.”

Dubow suggested that Trump may be more angry about South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, filed in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023 in relation to the war on Gaza.

While the Trump administration is welcoming “refugees” from South Africa, it is simultaneously removing protections for those from other countries. Since Trump’s inauguration in January, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has revoked protection from deportation previously granted to more than 800,000 people who escaped conflict zones or danger in Venezuela, Haiti, Afghanistan and Cameroon.

‘Turn the lights down’: Trump displayed a video showing attacks

Trump claimed he had video and photo evidence to back up his “white genocide” allegations.

At one point during the meeting, the US president flipped through a stack of printed news clippings. “Death, death, death,” he said, showing the cameras one news article after another.

He held up one particular article from a publication called American Thinker, titled “Let’s talk about Africa, which is where tribalism takes you”. While the article mentions South Africa, Trump said that the thumbnail image showed white farmers being buried. However, the thumbnail proved to be a screengrab from a news clip about violence against women in Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Goma.

Trump then asked for the lights in the Oval Office to be dimmed and a five-minute video montage was displayed on a screen. The videos included one of a South African opposition figure, Julius Malema, the leader of the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, singing the anti-apartheid song Dubul’ ibhunu (“Kill the Boer”) at a rally. The title of the song is often also translated as “kill the white farmer”.

Dubow said some populists do promote “inflammatory songs” such as “Kill the Boers” in South Africa. “This may or may not be meant literally,” he told Al Jazeera. “President Ramaphosa and the ANC [Ramaphosa’s party, African National Congress] do not support such rhetoric.”

Next, Trump went on the attack again. “You do allow them to take land,” Trump told Ramaphosa.

“Nobody can take land,” Ramaphosa said.

“When they take the land, they kill the white farmer. And when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them,” Trump replied.

“There is criminality in our country. People who do get killed, unfortunately through criminal activity, are not only white people, majority of them are Black people,” Ramaphosa said. Trump cut him off, saying “the farmers are not Black”.

Talking about South Africa’s land reform law

In January, Ramaphosa signed a new land expropriation law aimed at righting apartheid-era wrongs in South Africa.

Under the new law, the government has the power to seize privately owned land from people of any race for public purposes and public interests. While the law provides for compensation payments, it also allows for seizure without compensation in certain instances. This law replaced a 1975 law which was criticised for lacking clear compensation plans and being legally ambiguous.

White South Africans are mostly either Afrikaans-speaking descendants of Dutch settlers or English-speaking descendants of British colonialists.

Until the 1990s, white Afrikaners controlled the country under the system of apartheid, a system which excluded the Black majority in South Africa.

Even though apartheid officially ended in 1994, several of the most successful business and farmland owners in South Africa are white and more than half of the country’s Black population is categorised as poor. White South Africans make up about 7 percent of the population but own more than 70 percent of the land.

“The long history of colonialism and land dispossession in South Africa has not been addressed. Historical racial injustice remains keenly felt. White farmers remain in possession of most of the productive land, 30 years after 1994,” Dubow said.

“White farmers, large producers in particular, have generally done well in the post-apartheid era. They are probably more vulnerable to American tariffs than physical attacks,” said Dubow.

In February, Trump froze aid to South Africa, saying the new land law permits the government to seize land from ethnic minority Afrikaners without compensation.

As of mid-May, however, no land had been forcibly taken by the South African government without compensation under the new law.

The Trump administration also extensively scaled back the operations of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), stripping aid organisations all over the world of foreign assistance. This put more than 8,000 workers in South Africa’s national HIV programme out of work.

“South Africans keenly feel the withdrawal of American support of HIV/AIDS programmes,” Dubow said. “A key question is the future of the AGOA [African Growth and Opportunity Act] agreement, signed in 2000, which allows tariff-free exports to the United States. South African manufactured motor cars and agricultural exports would be hit should AGOA not be renewed,” he added. As of 2024, 32 sub-Saharan countries are eligible for AGOA benefits.

“Another indicator will be whether Trump attends the upcoming G20 in South Africa.”

Angling for a trade deal

Ramaphosa had promised South Africans that he would present a trade deal to the US, so he talked about the history of economic cooperation between Washington and Pretoria, and dangled access to “rare earth minerals”.

“We’ve got critical minerals that you want to fuel the growth of your own economy and reindustrialise. So, we have that on offer, including rare earth minerals,” Ramaphosa told Trump.

South Africa holds large reserves of gold, platinum group metals, chrome ore, manganese ore, zirconium, vanadium and titanium.

Critical minerals are important for the manufacturing of clean energy and machinery and for the production of technology including mobile phones, solar panels and electric vehicles. In March, Trump invoked wartime powers to direct federal agencies to identify mines and government-owned land that could be exploited to boost the production of critical minerals.

South Africa is one of many countries eager to forge a new trade deal with the US in order to avoid Trump’s threat of punishing tariffs. On April 2, which Trump called “liberation day,” he slapped a 31 percent reciprocal tariff on South Africa, currently on a 90-day pause. The US’s universal 10 percent tariff on overseas goods remains in place, including for South Africa.

In 2023, 7 percent of South Africa’s exports went to the US and 6.4 percent of its imports came from the US, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC).

While the two countries did not confirm a trade agreement at Wednesday’s meeting, Ramaphosa told reporters afterwards that the discussion was “a great success”. He added that he presented a framework for a trade deal to Trump, and the two agreed to continue having discussions to figure out the specifics of this deal.

Not the first such ambush

This was not the first time a foreign leader has faced a hostile atmosphere in the Oval Office.

On February 28, an Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Trump turned sour. During the meeting, Trump and his Vice President JD Vance publicly accused Zelenskyy of not being thankful enough for US support to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Islamabad, Pakistan – As Pakistan sought to defend itself against Indian missiles and drones launched at its military bases and cities in early May, it relied on an unlikely combination of assets: Chinese missiles and air defence; Chinese and United States fighter jets; and US diplomacy.

The missiles, air defence and jets helped Pakistan thwart any devastating hits on its airbases and claim it had brought down multiple Indian fighter planes – an assertion that India has neither confirmed nor denied.

The diplomacy sealed a ceasefire that Pakistan has publicly welcomed and thanked the Donald Trump administration for.

Yet, as the US has in recent years increasingly picked India over Pakistan as its principal South Asian partner, Pakistan this week worked to reassure China that Beijing remained its most coveted ally.

Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, who also serves as foreign minister, visited Beijing earlier this week, meeting his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on May 20 in the first high-profile overseas visit by a Pakistani leader since the ceasefire.

According to a statement from the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the two sides discussed the fallout of the brief but intense conflict with India, the ceasefire, and Islamabad’s criticism of New Delhi’s actions.

During the meeting with Wang, Dar highlighted India’s “unilateral and illegal decision” to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a six-decade water-sharing agreement. India halted the accord following the April 22 Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which left 26 people dead. Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan-based armed groups, an allegation Islamabad denies.

Wang, meanwhile, welcomed the ceasefire, describing it as serving the “fundamental and long-term interests of both sides [India and Pakistan]” while promoting regional peace.

Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar @MIshaqDar50, held in-depth consultations with the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, today in Beijing.

Both sides exchanged views on evolving situation in South Asia, future trajectory of Pakistan-China… pic.twitter.com/mL03ljzyFr

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan (@ForeignOfficePk) May 20, 2025

Getting Wang on board was critical for Pakistan, say analysts.

‘Power struggle in South Asia’

With South Asia sitting on a tinderbox during the recent Pakistan-India standoff, a larger geopolitical contest loomed in the background.

Pakistan, once a key US ally, has shifted decisively into China’s orbit, relying on its northwestern neighbour heavily for economic and military support.

Meanwhile, India, long known for its non-alignment policy, has leaned closer to the US in recent years as part of a strategy to counter China’s rising influence.

Shahid Ali, an assistant professor of international relations at Lahore College for Women University, who specialises in Pakistan-China relations, said the timing and optics of Dar’s visit were significant.

“While Pakistan hoped to get China’s full diplomatic support for its conflict with India, especially regarding the suspension of the IWT, the visit also provided Dar a good opportunity to apprise China about US-led ceasefire dynamics, also reassuring them of Pakistan’s longstanding all-weather strategic partnership,” Ali told Al Jazeera.

Erum Ashraf, a UK-based scholar focused on Pakistan-China ties and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – a $62bn mega project launched a decade ago – echoed this view.

She said the meeting allowed China to better understand what promises Pakistan may have made to the US and President Trump, who helped mediate the ceasefire.

“The Chinese must be concerned how Pakistan managed to gain President Trump’s support to talk of ceasefire and to even offer to resolve the matter of Kashmir between both countries. The Chinese worry how US influence in their back yard could impact their interest in the region,” she told Al Jazeera.

CPEC remains a cornerstone

Pakistan’s former ambassador to China, Masood Khalid, called Beijing a “logical” first stop for Islamabad’s efforts to use diplomacy to push its narrative about the crisis with India in the aftermath of the ceasefire.

He noted that beyond the recent India-Pakistan military confrontation, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor remained a key pillar of bilateral cooperation.

“The foreign minister may apprise the Chinese side of the security steps which Pakistan has taken for Chinese nationals’ protection,” Khalid told Al Jazeera.

Indeed, according to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang prodded both countries to work together to create an “upgraded version of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.”

CPEC, launched in 2015 under then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the elder brother of current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, has been hailed as a “game-changer” for Pakistan.

It is a key component of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a huge network of roads, bridges and ports spread across nearly 100 countries that Beijing hopes will recreate the ancient Silk Road trade routes linking Europe and Asia.

However, CPEC has faced repeated delays, especially in Balochistan, where its crown jewel, the Gwadar Port, is located.

Separatist groups in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but poorest province, have long waged an armed rebellion against the state and have repeatedly hit Chinese personnel and installations, accusing them of benefitting from the province’s vast natural resources.

According to Pakistani government figures, nearly 20,000 Chinese nationals live in the country. At least 20 have been killed since 2021 in various attacks in different parts of Pakistan.

While Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry did not mention it explicitly, the Chinese statement quoted Dar as saying his country would make every effort to “ensure the safety of Chinese personnel, projects and institutions in Pakistan”.

Muhammad Faisal, a South Asia security researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, said the safety of Chinese nationals remains Beijing’s “topmost concern”.

“Even as the crisis with India heightened, the presence of a large number of Chinese nationals in Pakistan, in some ways, compelled Beijing to seek swift crisis de-escalation,” he told Al Jazeera.

‘China’s high-wire act’

Between April 22, when the Pahalgam attack occurred, and May 7, when India struck targets inside Pakistani territory, a global diplomatic effort was quietly under way to de-escalate tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations.

During this period, the US initially showed little interest in direct involvement while China, initially, also was slow to get involved.

China, which has a historically tense relationship with Delhi that suffered further after their troops clashed in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh in 2020, eventually urged restraint from both sides.

However, many observers felt China’s position was seen as lacking neutrality due to its closeness with Pakistan.

Faisal said China is likely to maintain its current “high-wire act”, acknowledging Pakistan’s security concerns while continuing to call for calm on both sides.

He added that while the US was the lead mediator for the ceasefire, Beijing double-tapped Washington by calling both Islamabad and New Delhi to dial down tensions.

“A lesson Beijing learned is that its current restrained public posturing opened up diplomatic space to engage with interlocutors in both Islamabad and New Delhi, despite the fact that the latter views its role with scepticism,” he said.

Ashraf, the UK-based academic, said India did not view China as a “neutral umpire” in its disputes with Pakistan – even though New Delhi and Beijing have in recent months tried to reset their ties, pulling troops back from contested border points and ramping up diplomatic efforts to calm tensions.

“India and China have only recently achieved a breakthrough in their strained border relations, which perhaps helps to explain China’s initial ‘hands off’ behaviour with Pakistan after Pahalgam,” she said.

But ultimately, she said, China needs to “balance a tightrope”: It doesn’t want to “upset relations with India”, but it also needs to help Pakistan enough that it doesn’t “collapse in the face of India’s attacks”.

That’s a balance China managed to strike successfully in early May. With Dar’s visit to Beijing, say analysts, Pakistan – which also benefitted from US diplomatic intervention – tried to repay the favour.