“We don’t want to reach a situation of no war, no peace,” Majed al-Ansari, adviser to Qatar’s prime minister and spokesperson for the foreign ministry warned.
The situation in Gaza could develop into a “no war, no peace” deal, where Israel keeps its troops inside the strip due to the impossibility of establishing an international security force, a senior Qatari diplomat warned in an interview with The Guardian on Friday.
“There is a need for the international community to go in, assess the damage, start thinking about reconstruction, working on reconstruction, and to formally keep the peace,” Majed al-Ansari, adviser to Qatar’s prime minister and spokesperson for the foreign ministry said. “This is what will significantly shift the whole process from war to the day after.”
According to Ansari, Qatar is hopeful that the UN Security Council will approve a resolution that would “mandate an administration and an international force in Gaza, that we would be able to stabilize the situation.”
“In principle, a lot of the countries in the region and beyond have agreed to be part of this, but in practice that needs a very concrete mandate for the force,” he detailed.
Ansari also addressed the problem of finding the remains of the hostages: “There are a lot of challenges before we are able to dispense with stage one [of the deal]. Including the difficulty of excavating the remains of those [hostages] who were killed and ascertaining their identities, and the violations that result in the death of Palestinians every day at the hands of IDF soldiers.”
Palestinians carry aid supplies in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, June 16, 2025; illustrative. (credit: REUTERS/DAWOUD ABU ALKAS)
Qatar still critical of Israel’s strike on its soil against Hamas
“It was designed to push us out, not only out of these [Gaza] talks, but to push us out as an internationally trusted mediator,” he said. “We were working on more than 10 mediations on the day of the attack.”
“This was not an attack we could brush off and continue doing the work that we were doing,” he said, and detailed that the US had to ensure that no more attacks would happen on Qatari soil for negotiations to resume.
The leader of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has declared an investigation into what he called violations committed by his soldiers during the capture of el-Fasher.
The announcement by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, came after escalating reports of mass civilian killings following the RSF takeover of the city in the Darfur region on Sunday.
The UN Security Council is expected to hold a meeting on Sudan, which is in its third year of civil war between the army and the paramilitary fighters.
The RSF leader spoke after international outrage about reports of mass killings in el -Fasher, apparently documented by his paramilitary fighters in social media videos.
Hemedti said he was sorry for the disaster that had befallen the people of el-Fasher and admitted there had been violations by his forces, which would be investigated by a committee that has now arrived in the city.
The RSF denies widespread allegations that the killings in el-Fasher are ethnically motivated and follow a pattern of the Arab paramilitaries targeting non-Arab populations.
Activists have also stepped up demands for international pressure on the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is accused of providing military support to the RSF.
The UAE denies this despite evidence presented in UN reports.
El-Fasher had been the army’s last stronghold in the Darfur region, and was captured by the RSF after an 18-month siege marked by starvation and heavy bombardment.
The capture of el-Fasher effectively splits the country, with the RSF now in control of most of Darfur and much of neighbouring Kordofan and the army holding the capital, Khartoum, central and eastern regions along the Red Sea.
The two warring rivals had been allies – coming to power together in a coup in 2021 – but fell out over an internationally backed plan to move towards civilian rule.
More BBC stories on Sudan:
[Getty Images/BBC]
Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.
By FARNOUSH AMIRI, STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN and EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Iran’s president called the expected reimposition of sanctions over its nuclear program “unfair, unjust and illegal” on Friday as the U.N. Security Council rejected a last-ditch effort to delay them.
President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke at a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, a day before the deadline for the so-called “snapback” of sanctions to kick in. But the president says that despite previous threats, Iran will not respond by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, potentially following North Korea, which abandoned the treaty in 2003 and then built atomic weapons.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council on Friday rejected another last-ditch effort to delay the reimposition of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program a day before the deadline and after Western countries claimed that weeks of meetings failed to result in a “concrete” agreement.
The resolution put forth by Russia and China — Iran’s most powerful and closest allies on the 15-member council — failed to garner support from the nine countries required to halt the series of U.N. sanctions from taking effect Saturday, as outlined in Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
“We had hoped that European colleagues and the U.S. would think twice, and they would opt for the path of diplomacy and dialogue instead of their clumsy blackmail, which merely results in escalation of the situation in the region,” Dmitry Polyanskiy, the deputy Russian ambassador to the U.N., said during the meeting.
Barring an eleventh-hour deal, the reinstatement of sanctions — triggered by Britain, France and Germany — will once again freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran and penalize any development of Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other measures. That will further squeeze the country’s reeling economy.
The move is expected to heighten already magnified tensions between Iran and the West. It’s unclear how Iran will respond, given that in the past, officials have threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, potentially following North Korea, which abandoned the treaty in 2003 and then built atomic weapons.
Four countries — China, Russia, Pakistan and Algeria — once again supported giving Iran more time to negotiate with the European countries, known as the E3, and the United States, which unilaterally withdrew from the accord with world powers in 2018.
“The U.S has betrayed diplomacy, but it is the E3 which have buried it,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said after the vote. “This sordid mess did not come about overnight. Both the E3 and the U.S. have consistently misrepresented Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.”
The European leaders triggered the so-called “snapback” mechanism last month after accusing Tehran of failing to comply with the conditions of the accord and when weeks of high-level negotiations failed to reach a diplomatic resolution.
Lots of diplomacy as deadline nears
Since the 30-day clock began, Araghchi, has been meeting with his French, British and German counterparts to strike a last-minute deal, leading up to this week’s U.N. General Assembly gathering. But those talks appeared futile, with one European diplomat telling the Associated Press on Wednesday that they “did not produce any new developments, any new results.”
Therefore, European sources “expect that the snapback procedure will continue as planned.”
Even before Araghchi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in New York on Tuesday for the annual gathering, remarks from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that peace talks with the United States represent “a sheer dead end” constrained any eleventh-hour diplomatic efforts from taking place.
Iranian officials have defended their position over the last several weeks, saying that they’ve put forward “multiple proposals to keep the window for diplomacy open.” On Friday, Araghchi said in a social media post that “the E3 has failed to reciprocate” efforts, “while the U.S. has doubled down on its dictates.” He urged the Security Council to vote in favor of an extension to provide the “time and space for diplomacy.”
European nations have said they would be willing to extend the deadline if Iran complies with a series of conditions. Those include resumption of direct negotiations with the U.S. over its nuclear program, allowing U.N. nuclear inspectors access to its nuclear sites, and accounts for the more than 880 pounds of highly enriched uranium the U.N. watchdog says it has.
Nuclear inspectors said to be currently in Iran
Of all the nations in the world that don’t have nuclear weapons programs, Iran is the only nation in the world that enriches uranium up to 60% — a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels.
Earlier this month, the U.N. nuclear watchdog and Iran signed an agreement mediated by Egypt to pave the way for resuming cooperation, including on ways of relaunching inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities. However, Iran has threatened to terminate that agreement and cut all cooperation with the IAEA should U.N. sanctions be reimposed.
Iran has been wary of giving full access to inspectors following the 12-day war with Israel in June that saw both the Israelis and the Americans bomb Iranian nuclear sites, throwing into question the status of Tehran’s stockpile of uranium enriched nearly to weapons-grade levels.
But a diplomat close to the IAEA confirmed on Friday that inspectors are currently in Iran where they are inspecting a second undamaged site, and will not leave the country ahead of the expected reimposition of sanctions this weekend. IAEA inspectors earlier watched a fuel replacement at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant on Aug. 27 and 28.
The Europeans have said this action alone is not enough to halt the sanctions from coming into place Saturday.
Liechtenstein reported from Vienna. Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.
After the United Nations voted to uphold the nuclear “snapback” sanctions process, the Iranian President asserted that Iran will not be stopped.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian vowed on Saturday that Iran would overcome any reimposition of sanctions on it through a so-called “snapback” process, after the UN Security Council voted not to permanently lift sanctions on Tehran.
“Through the ‘snapback’ they block the road, but it is the brains and the thoughts that open or build the road,” Pezeshkian said in remarks carried by state television.
“They cannot stop us. They can strike our Natanz or Fordow (nuclear installations struck by the US and Israel in June), But they are unaware that it is humans who built and will rebuild Natanz,” Pezeshkian said.
The Security Council move came on Friday after Britain, France and Germany launched a 30-day process last month to reimpose sanctions, accusing Tehran of failing to abide by a 2015 deal with world powers aimed at preventing it from developing a nuclear weapon.
An IDF infographic on the Isfahan nuclear facility in Iran, released June 13, 2025 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)
Iran denies having any such intention
“We will never surrender in the face of excessive demands because we have the power to change the situation,” Pezeshkian was quoted as saying by state media.
The “snapback” process would reimpose UN sanctions on Iran unless an agreement is reached on a delay between Tehran and key European powers within about a week.
The snapback would reimpose an arms embargo, a ban on uranium enrichment and reprocessing, a ban on activities with ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, a global asset freeze and travel bans on Iranian individuals and entities.