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The UK’s foreign secretary has said there needs to be “wider buy-in” from countries in the region around Afghanistan to exert maximum influence on the Taliban.

Speaking at a news conference in Doha with his opposite number from Qatar, Dominic Raab said an “international coalition” needs to be formed to “exert the maximum moderating influence” on the Taliban following its takeover of the central Asian country.

Mr Raab said: “We need to get wider buy-in, regional countries involved… there’s a lot of countries with a direct stake in what happens in Afghanistan, as well as countries who will feel and be moved by the humanitarian risks and the plight.

Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed meets British Foreign Secretary Raab in Doha
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Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab gave a news conference in Doha alongside his Qatari counterpart

“Above all, we need to put a grouping together that can exert maximum moderating influence on what the Taliban does next. And we will certainly be judging them. Yes, on their words. But more importantly, what they’re willing to do to live up to the assurances that they’ve made.”

Despite saying there was scope for engagement and dialogue with the Taliban, he said the UK has no immediate plans to recognise the group as a government.

Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani said the Gulf state was talking with the Taliban and working with Turkey to see if it can provide technical support to restart operations at Kabul airport, but he was unable to give any time line. Sky News understands this might be weeks, rather than days.

It comes as Mr Raab said he hoped that many of those who had worked with the UK and UK-linked organisations – or were part of Afghan civil society but were not among the 17,000 evacuated from Kabul airport – may still be given safe passage out.

More on Afghanistan

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West risks civil war unless it engages with Taliban, Pakistan warns

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Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says there is a ‘need’ for ‘direct engagement’ with the Taliban.

Meanwhile, in other developments around Afghanistan:

• Taliban rulers are to unveil their new government, with a ceremony being prepared at the presidential palace

• Prices are soaring, the currency has plunged, shops are closed and the Taliban is struggling to keep banks and essential services running

• Humanitarian organisations have warned of catastrophe as severe drought and the war have forced thousands of families to flee their homes

• The EU has said it is still far from deciding whether it will recognise the Taliban

At the news conference, the Mr Raab said four key points for the future were: stopping Afghanistan becoming a “haven” for terrorists, preventing a humanitarian crisis, preserving regional stability and holding the Taliban to account over its claims it will form a more inclusive government.

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Tom Tugendhat said revealing the document was made on 22 July, before the fall of Kabul, was ‘clearly in the public interest’.

He added that Qatar was a “lynch pin” in dealing with the Afghanistan crisis.

Mr Raab said: “We feel responsibility to make sure that the remaining British nationals and Afghan workers can come to the UK.

“But we are also here and I am here – not just in Qatar but moving on afterwards – to talk to regional countries about how we can ensure safe passage through third countries.

“The reality is, as I have described, we will not be recognising the Taliban any time in the foreseeable future, but I think there is an important scope for engagement and dialogue and testing the intentions and indeed the assurances that have already been made by the Taliban.”

The foreign secretary was anticipated to go on to meet the Amir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, and his deputy prime minister.

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The foreign secretary would not be drawn on when he started his holiday, calling questions about it a ‘fishing expedition’.

He will meet Foreign Office officials after the British Embassy to Afghanistan was temporarily relocated and is now up and running in Doha.

Mr Raab left the UK hours after he was questioned by MPs in the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on the events in central Asia.

The foreign secretary told the committee the advice from the intelligence community and the military was that Kabul was unlikely to fall this year.

Following his appearance, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace struck back at Mr Raab’s comments, saying in an interview published on Thursday that history shows “it’s not about failure of intelligence, it’s about the limits of intelligence”.

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Four more arrests made over Louvre heist as £76m haul remains missing

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Four more arrests made over Louvre heist as £76m haul remains missing

Four more arrests have been made by French police investigating the Louvre museum heist.

Two men and two women from the Paris region were detained on Tuesday, prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.

Ms Beccuau’s statement did not say what role the quartet are suspected of having played in the robbery. The two men are aged 38 and 39, and the two women are aged 31 and 40.

They are being interrogated by police, who can hold them for questioning for 96 hours.

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Louvre: How ‘heist of the century’ unfolded

The latest arrests come after investigating magistrates filed preliminary charges against three men and one woman who were arrested last month.

Some of the French Crown Jewels, worth an estimated £76m, were stolen in the audacious October raid.

The haul – which included a diamond and emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels linked to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amelie and Hortense, and Empress Eugenie’s pearl and diamond tiara – has not been recovered.

The heist was pulled off in mere minutes last month – and took place while the Louvre was open to visitors, raising doubts over the credibility of the world’s most-visited museum as a guardian for its priceless works.

On Sunday 19 October, two men used a stolen furniture lift to access the second floor Galerie d’Apollon.

They then cracked open display cases with angle grinders before escaping with their loot and fleeing on the back of two scooters driven by accomplices.

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Moment thieves escape Louvre in jewel heist

The Paris prosecutor previously said the robbery appeared to be the work of small-time criminals rather than professional gangsters.

Speaking shortly after the heist, art detective Arthur Brand told Sky News that detectives faced a “race against time” to recover the stolen treasure.

“These crown jewels are so famous, you just cannot sell them,” Mr Brand said. “The only thing they can do is melt the silver and gold down, dismantle the diamonds, try to cut them. That’s the way they will probably disappear forever.

“They [the police] have a week. If they catch the thieves, the stuff might still be there. If it takes longer, the loot is probably gone and dismantled. It’s a race against time.”

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Zelenskyy is racing to beat Donald Trump’s peace plan deadline – but what will Russia do?

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Zelenskyy is racing to beat Donald Trump's peace plan deadline – but what will Russia do?

Washington woke up this morning to a flurry of developments on Ukraine.

It was the middle of the night in DC when a tweet dropped from Ukraine’s national security advisor, Rustem Umerov.

He said that the US and Ukraine had reached a “common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.”

He added that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would travel to America “at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump”.

Ukraine latest: ‘Delicate’ deal details must be sorted, White House says

By sunrise in Washington, a US official was using similar but not identical language to frame progress.

The official, speaking anonymously to US media, said that Ukraine had “agreed” to Trump’s peace proposal “with some minor details to be worked out”.

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In parallel, it’s emerged that talks have been taking place in Abu Dhabi. The Americans claim to have met both Russian and Ukrainian officials there, though the Russians have not confirmed attendance.

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Peace deal ‘agreement’: What we know

“I have nothing to say. We are following the media reports,” Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, told Russian state media.

Trump is due to travel to his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago tonight, where he will remain until Sunday.

He set a deadline of Thursday – Thanksgiving – for some sort of agreement on his plan.

We know the plan has been changed from its original form, but it’s clear that Zelenskyy wants to be seen to agree to something quickly – that would go down well with President Trump.

Read more:
US hails ‘tremendous progress’ on Ukraine peace plan

In full: Europe’s 28-point counter proposal

My sense is that Zelenskyy will try to get to Mar-a-Lago as soon as he can. Before Thursday would be a push but would meet Trump’s deadline.

It will then be left for the Russians to state their position on the revised document.

All indications are that they will reject it. But maybe the secret Abu Dhabi talks will yield something.

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Controversial US and Israeli-backed aid operation the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to close

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Controversial US and Israeli-backed aid operation the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to close

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid distribution group, has said it will permanently cease operations.

Set up as an alternative to United Nations aid programmes in May, GHF’s executive director John Acree said on Monday that it “succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans”.

The foundation had already closed down aid distribution sites after US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan was agreed by Hamas and Israel in October.

The GHF which began operations in Gaza after an Israeli blockade of food deliveries, lasting nearly three months, was criticised by Palestinians, aid workers and health officials who said it forced people to risk their lives to reach the sites.

File pic: Reuters
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File pic: Reuters

According to witnesses and videos posted to social media, Israeli soldiers repeatedly opened fire at the sites, killing hundreds. The IDF denied this, saying it only fired warning shots as a crowd-control measure or if its troops were in danger.

In July, analysis from Sky News’ Data and Forensics team found that aid distributions by GHF were associated with a significant increase in deaths.

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Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open

MSF – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said in a report in August that the GHF sites “morphed into a laboratory of cruelty,” and described scenes there as “orchestrated killing”.

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‘We are proud,’ says GHF director

Mr Acree said in a statement through the GHF’s website that “from the outset, GHF’s goal was to meet an urgent need” and to hand over a successful aid operation to “the broader international community”.

The GHF would hand over its work to the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Israel overseeing the Gaza ceasefire.

“We are winding down our operations as we have succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans,” Mr Acree said.

File pic: Reuters
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File pic: Reuters

The GHF director added: “At a critical juncture, we are proud to have been the only aid operation that reliably and safely provided free meals directly to Palestinian people in Gaza, at scale and without diversion.

“From our very first day of operations, our mission was singular: feed civilians in desperate need. We built a new model that worked, saved lives, and restored dignity to civilians in Gaza.”

According to the GHF website, the group distributed more than three million food boxes, totalling 187 million meals, and supplied 1.1 million packs of Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food (RUSF) for malnourished children.

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Hamas welcomes GHF closure

In a statement, Hamas welcomed the closure of GHF and accused it of being a project that “engineered starvation” in partnership with Israel.

A Hamas spokesperson said: “Since its entry into the Gaza Strip, this foundation was part of the occupation’s security system, which adopted distribution mechanisms entirely disconnected from humanitarian principles, and created dangerous and degrading conditions for the dignity of the starving Palestinian people during their attempts to obtain a piece of bread, resulting in the killing and injury of thousands, through sniper operations and deliberate killing.”

They also called on international legal bodies to hold “this foundation and its officers accountable for their crimes against our people”.

US state department deputy spokesperson Tommy Piggot also said on X that the aid group “shared valuable lessons learned with us and our partners”.

“GHF’s model, in which Hamas could no longer loot and profit from stealing aid, played a huge role in getting Hamas to the table and achieving a ceasefire,” he added.

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