G7 Foreign Ministers Open Paris Talks on Ukraine and Iran as Rubio Makes First Trip Since Midterms

Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations opened two days of talks in Paris on Monday, with the wars in Ukraine and Iran at the top of an agenda that will test how closely Europe and the United States still align on the world’s two most dangerous conflicts.

The meeting brings together the foreign ministers of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, with the European Union also taking part. All eyes are on US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is due to attend both days of the gathering on his first trip abroad since Republicans lost control of Congress in the midterm elections on 3 November.

The talks were moved from Marseille to Paris at short notice. France holds the G7 presidency until the end of the year, and the United States takes it over in 2027.

Rubio’s first trip since the midterm losses

Rubio’s visit is his first foreign trip since the midterm defeat, the State Department said when it announced the journey on 6 November. He is travelling from 8 to 10 November, and unlike the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in March, when he attended for only one day, he is expected to stay for the whole meeting.

The secretary of state will face questions from allies about the direction of American foreign policy after the election result, including the future of US support for Ukraine and the course of the war with Iran, which is now in its ninth month.

Ukraine: Europe presses for a seat at the table

The Paris meeting coincides with US-mediated talks between Moscow and Kyiv due to open in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, and European governments are pressing to make sure Ukraine is not pushed into accepting disadvantageous terms. AFP reported that European powers hope to persuade Washington to seek a fair settlement for Ukraine while deterring further military action against Iran.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told RTL radio that “Europeans will be represented and France will be in Abu Dhabi to participate in these talks”. France has invited Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine to take part in some of the Paris sessions, and a separate session on support for Ukraine is planned.

Rubio has said recent discussions made progress on security guarantees for Ukraine and the wider European region, although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has questioned proposals for a new European security framework. Russia’s war against Ukraine, which began with the full-scale invasion in February 2022, is grinding towards its fifth anniversary.

Iran: little progress, and strikes still on the table

On Iran, the ministers face a diplomatic effort that appears to be stalling. Speaking in Florida on Sunday before departing for Paris, Rubio said talks had made “little progress” and described Iran’s ceasefire terms as “outrageous”.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said Tehran formally submitted a seven-day roadmap to end the war through Qatar. Under the plan, the United States would lift its naval blockade of Iranian ports, waive sanctions on Iranian oil sales, release an estimated $12 billion in frozen Iranian assets and observe a ceasefire covering the region, including Lebanon and Yemen. In return, Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz on the sixth day and begin talks with the United States on a final deal, including on its nuclear programme, on the seventh day.

President Donald Trump has not ruled out further military strikes against Iran, including at the site known as Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected nuclear facility that Tehran denies is a nuclear site. Trump is also due to meet Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, at the White House on Monday, according to the White House schedule.

A crowded agenda — and no communique expected

Beyond Ukraine and Iran, the French hosts have listed freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, the wider Middle East including Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, Africa, the Indo-Pacific, China, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti.

On the sidelines, the French finance ministry is hosting a donor conference on Monday to raise funds to repair the dome protecting the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, which was damaged in the 1986 explosion.

The meeting is one of the final major diplomatic events of France’s G7 presidency, but it is not expected to produce a joint communique — a sign, Reuters reported, of how divided the group remains on several major issues.