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On the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, former and current U.S. President Donald Trump convened a high-profile gathering of top Arab and Muslim regional leaders, an event that drew widespread global attention amid escalating tensions across the Middle East. While Trump heaped extensive praise on his assembled guests and revealed that U.S. envoys had held a landmark three-hour negotiation session with Iranian officials aimed at de-escalating ongoing conflict, the closed-door meeting concluded without any major policy announcements or concrete agreements to address the region’s long-running turmoil.

Speaking to reporters shortly before entering the closed meeting, Trump confirmed the surprise diplomatic breakthrough, framing the discussion between U.S. and Iranian representatives as a constructive step toward finding a mutually acceptable exit to the open hostilities that have roiled the region since February. “They had a very good meeting, a very productive meeting,” Trump told the press pool, adding that a follow-up negotiation has already been scheduled for the near future to continue the dialogue.

During the meeting with regional leaders, Trump personally credited two of his closest associates for spearheading the indirect talks with Iran: special peace envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who holds no formal official position in the 2025 administration. “We’ll see what happens with that… We’ve been mediating for a while, but I think there’s a lot of momentum for them to make a deal. That’s what we’re hearing from everybody,” Trump told attendees and the assembled press before reporters were escorted out of the room.

The gathering brought together a who’s who of top leadership from across the Middle East and Muslim-majority region, including Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, Kuwaiti Crown Prince Sabah Khaled Al Hamad Al Sabah, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.

Trump opened his opening remarks to the group with unusually glowing public praise, calling the gathering a milestone in U.S. engagement with its regional partners. “It’s an honour to be here with some of America’s greatest and closest friends, allies, and partners to continue our effort toward a safer and more prosperous Middle East,” the president said. “Special place, and it’s become more special over the last period of time since I’ve been in politics… I’ve got a lot of great friends sitting around this table. They’re amazing people, and we make sure their lives are good.”

He went on to note that every participating nation had been “outstanding” in its cooperation with the United States, and thanked leaders for the approximately $21 trillion in regional investment that has flowed into the U.S. economy since he took office in January 2025. Trump reserved particular warm praise for Erdogan, with whom he has cultivated a close personal relationship dating back to his first presidential term, calling the Turkish leader a “fantastic guy” and a “tough cookie.” He joked to the room, “Don’t mess around with him,” drawing laughter from the assembled leaders.

This marked the second consecutive year that Trump has held this type of dedicated regional meeting on the UNGA sidelines. Last year’s gathering included leaders from the world’s most populous Muslim nations, Pakistan and Indonesia, and centered heavily on brokering an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. That ceasefire ultimately took effect three weeks after the 2024 meeting, though Israeli forces have continued to conduct regular air strikes on the enclave on a weekly basis in the months since.

This year’s meeting comes as Iran dominates regional policy discussions, following Iranian retaliatory strikes against U.S. interests that triggered the current open U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran that launched on February 28. In his remarks, Trump boasted of the damage the coalition campaign has inflicted on Iranian military capabilities, claiming: “Operation Epic Fury crippled Iran’s Navy… Eliminated its air force. They have no planes. Hit over 90 percent of its weapons factories and destroyed 450 ballistic missile storage facilities and 800 drone storage facilities.” He went on to issue a fresh warning, saying the U.S. is prepared to launch additional strikes on the key Iranian site Pickaxe Mountain if any military activity is detected there. “We’re not seeing a lot of activity there, but if we do, we’ll blow it up immediately,” he said.

Following Trump’s opening remarks to press, reporters were ushered out of the meeting room. The assembled regional leaders did not address media, and maintained stoic expressions during Trump’s public comments, with no pushback or public comment on his stark warnings against Iran.

This report was originally sourced from independent regional outlet Middle East Eye, which provides dedicated, unrivaled coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.

A high-profile upcoming marriage between one of former President Donald Trump’s closest legal advisors and a reclusive Turkish business leader is drawing widespread attention to overlapping global political connections and controversial commercial ventures stretching from central Africa to South America.

Alina Habba, the 42-year-old attorney who represented Trump in multiple high-stakes legal cases between 2021 and 2024, is scheduled to marry Turhan Mildon, the 29-year-old chief executive of Turkey-based family enterprise Miller Holding, later this week. Habba, who has long been considered a core member of Trump’s inner circle, was appointed by Trump as acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey in 2023, but a federal court later ruled the appointment unconstitutional, forcing her to step down in December that year. She has recently signaled openness to returning to a senior White House role if Trump returns to office, telling reporters last month she would accept the position of White House press secretary if asked to fill an expected upcoming vacancy.

Unlike his high-profile fiancée, Mildon has deliberately kept a low public profile for most of his career, rarely granting media interviews or making public appearances in his home country of Turkey. In a rare interview with Middle East Eye, he explained his choice to stay out of the spotlight, noting that his businesses do not sell directly to end consumers, making a public brand profile unnecessary. He also firmly pushed back against growing speculation that the upcoming marriage carries any hidden political agenda, stating plainly, “This marriage has no political motivation.”

According to Mildon, the pair were introduced several years ago by a mutual friend who serves as an ambassador based in the U.S., and the connection gradually developed into a romantic relationship. This will be Mildon’s second marriage: he was previously wed to Betul Gursoy, daughter of the late owner of the Gursoy Group, the construction firm that built Istanbul’s iconic Camlica Mosque, a major infrastructure project personally commissioned by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The pair divorced in late 2024. After his split from Gursoy, Mildon dated the daughter of Remigio Ceballos, a prominent Venezuelan admiral and long-time ally of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who currently serves as Venezuela’s ambassador to China. Ceballos has held a series of senior roles in Venezuela, including interior minister, top military commander, and aide-de-camp to Maduro.

Mildon’s business empire spans multiple industries and has expanded far beyond Turkey’s borders over the past four years, anchored by major infrastructure projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo that began after a high-level introduction from Erdogan himself. Mildon told MEE that during Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi’s official state visit to Turkey, Erdogan personally connected him to the African leader, who subsequently invited him to Kinshasa in 2021, at a time when widespread political and economic instability left most international investors hesitant to enter the country. “People didn’t dare to invest in Congo, so we have taken certain risks,” he said.

Since entering the Congolese market, his construction and investment firm Milvest has secured roughly $1 billion in public and private contracts, and has expanded into the mining sector, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars in direct foreign investment to the country, per Mildon’s own account. Earlier this year, the firm won a $67 million contract to build an aerial infrastructure base in Kisangani, a project Mildon clarifies is limited to civilian construction of a runway, control tower, and aircraft hangars, with no involvement in defense operations. The project was completed several months ago, he added.

Not all of Milvest’s Congolese projects have proceeded without controversy. Two major contracts — the $400 million Kinshasa Financial Center, billed as the largest financial hub on the African continent, and the Arena, a planned indoor sports complex that will be the largest of its kind in Africa when complete — sparked public scrutiny in 2023 after local media reports accused former Congolese Finance Minister Nicolas Kazadi of mismanaging public funds allocated for the projects. Mildon says that as of yet, neither he nor his company have received any formal investigation or inquiry from the Congolese government, and he confirmed the financial center was completed on schedule in December 2023 after 21 months of construction. Kazadi has also denied any wrongdoing, arguing the combined $400 million price tag for both projects came in under initial cost estimates.

The Arena project has faced additional hurdles, after Congolese officials accused Milvest of improperly securing tax and import exemptions for construction materials. Mildon denies any wrongdoing, but says the dispute delayed construction by eight months and cost his company millions of dollars in avoidable losses. MEE attempted to reach Kazadi for additional comment on the controversies but did not receive a response before publication.

More recently, Mildon has expanded his business operations into the high-risk Venezuelan market, where he has navigated complex U.S. sanctions and local political disputes to launch a cement revival project through his firm Vancement. After visiting the country and being impressed by its people and landscape, Mildon says he followed legal advice to avoid sanctioned sectors including oil, rare minerals, and chemicals, and instead focused on reviving Venezuela’s idle state-owned cement factories. In 2023, Vancement reached a profit-sharing agreement with the Venezuelan government to restart 10 cement plants that were nationalized in the early 2000s and had been operating well below production capacity. The agreement was reached after lengthy negotiations with the state-owned cement firm Corporacion Socialista del Cemento and then-Industry Minister Alex Saab, a close Maduro ally, and Mildon says the structure of the deal allows his company to operate in Venezuela without triggering U.S. sanctions penalties.

The Venezuelan venture has also faced public pushback: local contractors have alleged Vancement has failed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in outstanding bills for work on the project, and Venezuelan legislative leaders have publicly criticized the company for sky-high retail cement prices that have strained working-class consumers. Mildon denies both sets of claims. He argues payment disputes stem from local business customs and misattribution of debt owed by third-party contractors, not any failure by Vancement to meet its financial obligations. On the topic of cement prices, he explains that Vancement sells each bag of cement to third-party resellers for just $3 to $5, but resellers mark up prices to between $20 and $37, for which his company bears no blame. He told MEE that Vancement has asked the Venezuelan government to create a regulatory task force to crack down on excessive resale markups, but no action has been taken to date.

As the couple prepares for their wedding this week, their union is expected to continue drawing scrutiny from political observers, who are watching for how the connection between a top Trump ally and a Turkish business leader with deep ties to Erdogan, Maduro, and Congolese government leaders could shape policy and commercial outcomes if Trump wins a second term in 2024.

The Spanish government has ignited widespread domestic and international criticism after opting not to block a U.S. extradition request for high-profile American pro-Palestine activist and humanitarian donor Fergie Chambers at the preliminary review stage, clearing the way for the case to advance to the Spanish national court system. Government spokesperson Elma Saiz framed the Tuesday ruling as a strictly procedural step, emphasizing that the executive branch only completed a formal review of the extradition filing rather than a substantive judgment on its merits. Now, Chambers’ legal team will mount a challenge to the extradition before Spain’s Audiencia Nacional, after which the Spanish government will issue a final binding decision on the case. Lead defense counsel Baltasar Garzón — the former Spanish judge renowned for pursuing former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction — warned that the government’s decision establishes a dangerous precedent that undermines global advocacy for Palestinian rights. Garzón argued that Spain cannot credibly claim to uphold international law, defend Palestinian people’s rights, and protect humanitarian workers while advancing an extradition request that bears clear hallmarks of political persecution by the U.S. government. The ruling has also drawn sharp condemnation from across Spanish political circles. Ione Belarra, member of Spain’s Congress of Deputies and secretary-general of the left-wing party Podemos, called the outcome devastating for all those who support Palestinian statehood. “This decision is devastating not just for Fergie Chambers and his family, but for the pro-Palestine movement in Spain and across Europe,” Belarra stated. She went on to label Chambers as the first political prisoner in Spanish history held solely for his advocacy for Palestine, accusing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government of electing to keep him in detention to advance what she called the Trump administration’s politically motivated persecution. Chambers, an heir to the prominent Cox family fortune, was first arrested on the Spanish holiday island of Ibiza this past July in compliance with the U.S. extradition request. U.S. federal prosecutors have charged him with international money laundering, riot, and conspiracy to riot, alleging that after relocating from the U.S. in 2023, he moved roughly $7.5 million out of the country with the intention of providing material support to Hamas. As of press time, the U.S. Department of Justice has not issued any response to requests for comment on the case. Prior to Tuesday’s government ruling, Chambers’ legal team submitted a formal argument calling on the executive to block the extradition entirely, pointing to what they described as undeniable political motivations driving the U.S. request. The defense outlined three core legal objections: first, that allowing the case to proceed would enable the political persecution of Chambers; second, that U.S. prosecutors have failed to link Chambers personally to any specific acts of violence or property damage, and the charge of “conspiracy to riot” has no equivalent offense under Spanish criminal law; and third, that the money laundering allegation is baseless, as all of Chambers’ wealth was legally obtained through his family inheritance and fully documented. Stella Schnabel, Chambers’ partner, called the decision deeply alarming, arguing it sends a message that pro-Palestine solidarity can be criminalized even in Europe. “This sends a deeply disturbing message that even in Spain, solidarity with the Palestinian people could be treated as a crime, and risks extending the Trump administration’s repression of pro-Palestine and progressive movements into Europe, setting a dangerous precedent for others,” Schnabel said. She also shared the emotional toll of the ruling, saying she is heartbroken that Chambers will remain behind bars, where he can only meet his children through a glass partition and cannot hold his young son or their unborn child due in the near future. Beyond his political advocacy, Chambers has carried out extensive humanitarian work in Gaza. He provided a $100,000 grant to the Zaynab Project, which expands long-term mental health and psychosocial support for orphaned children in Gaza, connecting vulnerable youth to licensed therapists and ongoing counseling. He also donated $250,000 to the Sameer Project, a Gaza-based humanitarian organization that used the funding to build a bakery in northern Gaza, complete a desalination plant to provide clean drinking water, and operate a free medical clinic for local residents. After Chambers’ arrest in July, the charity paused all its operations, a move that has impacted tens of thousands of vulnerable Palestinians who rely on its services. Ahead of the government’s decision, 150 high-profile global public figures signed an open letter urging the Spanish government to reject the U.S. extradition request as an act of political persecution orchestrated by the Trump administration. Signatories included prominent Palestinian writer Mohammed el-Kurd, veteran civil rights campaigner Angela Davis, musicians Bob Vylan and Lowkey, and actors Riz Ahmed and Richard Gere. The letter condemned what it called the Trump administration’s unprecedented crackdown on individuals and organizations working to oppose what they described as genocide in Gaza and uphold international law, noting that Chambers has dedicated his life to supporting marginalized and vulnerable communities around the world. Last week, public protests in support of Chambers were held in six major Spanish cities, including Madrid, Barcelona, Murcia, Seville, and Galicia, drawing hundreds of pro-Palestine demonstrators who called for the Spanish government to reject the extradition request entirely. The controversial ruling comes at a moment of significant political upheaval for Spain, and amid already strained bilateral relations between Madrid and Washington. Spain is scheduled to hold a general election by 2027, and Sánchez’s minority coalition government faces pressure from multiple directions: left-wing parties have criticized the ruling as a betrayal of pro-Palestine values, while the conservative Popular Party and far-right Vox — both of which hold strongly pro-Israel positions — have pushed the government to comply with the U.S. request. Sánchez has already clashed repeatedly with U.S. President Donald Trump this year, most prominently over the ongoing war in Iran: his government refused to allow the U.S. to use Spanish military bases in Rota and Morón for operations linked to the conflict, and later barred U.S. military aircraft involved in the war from entering Spanish airspace.