China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency says the country’s foreign minister has held talks with his Iranian counterpart in Beijing in a meeting arranged by the Chinese side. The encounter on Wednesday between Abbas Araghchi and Wang Yi comes about one week after Araghchi met Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 27 in Russia.
US President Donald Trump has announced a pause in the US operation to ensure safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said in a social media post on Tuesday that the so-called Project Freedom will be paused for “a short period of time” to see whether an agreement with Iran “can be finalized and signed.”
The Natural History Museum in London has returned the ancestral remains of seven indigenous Ainu people to Japan at the request of the Japanese government. A ceremony to mark the handover was held at the museum on Tuesday, with Japan’s Ainu-Related Policies Minister Kikawada Hitoshi in attendance.