标签： Asia

A leaked account of closed-door diplomatic talks has pulled back the curtain on a stark contradiction at the heart of European Union foreign policy: EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas has privately drawn a parallel between Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the racial apartheid system that governed South Africa for decades, multiple sources familiar with the discussion have confirmed.

The revelation, first reported by Euractiv, places Kallas’s off-the-record views in direct tension with her very public, unwavering support for Israel amid the ongoing devastating conflict in Gaza and accelerating Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. According to individuals with direct knowledge of the meeting, Kallas made the comparison during confidential discussions with Mexican officials in Mexico City, where she led a high-level EU delegation on an official visit from May 20 to 22.

During the conversation, Kallas referenced her 2024 visit to South Africa’s apartheid museum in Johannesburg, framing the structural systems Israel has imposed on Palestinian communities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank as analogous to the formal racial segregation that defined South Africa from 1948 through the early 1990s.

Kallas’s characterization is far from unprecedented. For years, the United Nations, International Court of Justice, leading global human rights organizations, academic scholars, and international legal experts have formally classified Israel’s long-term domination of Palestinian territories as apartheid. Two EU member states, Ireland and Spain, have also publicly affirmed that Israel’s actions in occupied Palestinian territories meet the legal definition of apartheid.

What makes Kallas’s leaked remarks so significant is the sharp dissonance with her public posture. Since taking office, Kallas has positioned herself as one of Israel’s most prominent defenders in European politics. She has repeatedly backed Israel’s military campaign in Gaza — a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians according to Gaza health authorities, displaced most of the territory’s population, and triggered a catastrophic humanitarian famine that the International Court of Justice has warned amounts to a violation of the Genocide Convention. As recently as March 2025, during a joint press conference in Tel Aviv alongside Israeli officials, Kallas reaffirmed that the EU stood “in solidarity with Israel and its people,” adding that “the security of Israel is extremely important to the European Union” and emphasizing that Israelis “must feel safe in their homes.”

Critics across the political spectrum have seized on the leaked remarks to condemn what they call Kallas’s selective application of international law. Kallas has been one of the most vocal advocates for harsh punitive measures against Russia for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, pushing for sweeping sanctions and unwavering diplomatic support for Kyiv. But when it comes to Israel, she has consistently framed the country’s actions as a legitimate exercise of its “right to self-defense,” even as Palestinians endure mass bombardment, a year-long total siege, mass displacement, and what Kallas herself privately acknowledges is an apartheid system of rule.

Progressive members of the European Parliament have joined this criticism, arguing that the EU’s entire approach to the Gaza conflict is marked by hypocrisy when compared to its unified, forceful response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. MEPs have repeatedly demanded that Brussels adopt tougher sanctions on Israeli officials, suspend the long-standing EU-Israel Association Agreement, and end the political protection that the bloc has extended to Israel for decades.

The leak of Kallas’s remarks also comes at a moment of intensifying internal power struggle over control of EU foreign policy. On June 11, the Financial Times reported that France and Germany are circulating proposals to restructure the bloc’s diplomatic architecture, a change that would significantly reduce Kallas’s authority and influence. Citing five senior EU officials briefed on the ongoing talks, the FT reported that the proposals would strip key powers from the European External Action Service (EEAS), the diplomatic body that supports the EU foreign policy chief.

Any move to weaken Kallas and the EEAS would shift greater power over foreign policy to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the bloc’s national capitals. Von der Leyen has long sought to expand the commission’s role in setting EU foreign policy, and she is widely recognized as even more staunchly pro-Israel than Kallas.

This report was originally based on independent reporting from Middle East Eye, which provides dedicated, in-depth coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region.

When the world’s leading wealthy democracies gathered for their first ever summit in a French countryside chateau in 1975, China was never in the room. That original gathering of six major powers, which would become the annual Group of 7 a year later after Canada joined, was created to coordinate policy for a slumping global economy — and Beijing’s absence was never controversial.

At the time, China was mired in domestic political upheaval, decades away from its transformation into a global economic powerhouse. The idea of Mao Zedong, China’s revolutionary leader, joining U.S. President Gerald Ford and other Western heads of state for policy talks was unthinkable: Beijing had provided extensive military support to Ho Chi Minh’s communist forces in Vietnam, which ultimately defeated both U.S. and French military campaigns in the region. A seat at the 1975 Rambouillet summit would have never been on the table.

Decades later, as then-U.S. President Donald Trump and other G7 leaders convened for their summit in the French Alpine town of Evian-les-Bains, that historic exclusion has started to look increasingly out of step with global reality. Today, China holds enormous influence over global economic stability and international affairs, prompting a pressing question that hangs over every G7 gathering: Does the bloc make any sense without China at the table?

By any economic metric, China would qualify for membership without question. Following decades of rapid expansion after Mao’s death in 1976, China’s economy now outpaces every G7 member except the United States — it is larger than the economies of Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada combined. By that measure, a G7 summit without China is analogous to organizing a men’s soccer World Cup and excluding five-time champion Brazil, analysts note.

John Kirton, a University of Toronto scholar who specializes in G7 research, summed up China’s transformation: “From being only a tiny, benign panda bear in 1975, China has become a great global dragon.” He added that many observers agree the G7 and the broader global community would benefit from Chinese membership, with a plausible answer to the question of inclusion being “Yes.”

Yet a fundamental barrier stands in the way: the G7’s long-standing unwritten rule that membership is limited to functioning democracies. In their 1975 founding declaration at Rambouillet, the original leaders explicitly stated the bloc was built for nations “each responsible for the government of an open, democratic society, dedicated to individual liberty and social advancement.”

China would never have met that threshold during Mao’s rule, when tens of millions died from famine and political upheaval tied to the Chinese Communist Party’s revolutionary campaigns. Under current President Xi Jinping, it still does not qualify: multiple independent global rankings, including Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World report, Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index and the Fraser Institute’s economic freedom ranking, all place China far behind G7 members when it comes to civil liberties and political openness.

Even without a seat at the table, China is set to be the most consequential unspoken topic at the G7 summit. Beijing’s global clout touches nearly every policy area the bloc addresses, from trade to climate to national security. China posted a record annual trade surplus of nearly $1.2 trillion in 2025, maintaining a massive export imbalance that has long been a source of friction with other major industrialized economies. It controls a dominant share of the global supply of critical rare minerals required for green energy and advanced technology, its rapid military and tech advancement has sparked widespread anxiety among Western rivals, and it remains the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases driving climate change.

That makes China the unavoidable “elephant in the room” for the three-day Evian summit. As summit host, French President Emmanuel Macron has specifically set aside time for leaders to discuss rebalancing trade relations with China, amid growing fears that a surge in Chinese exports — particularly of electric vehicles — could harm domestic manufacturing sectors across G7 nations.

While relations between Trump and other G7 leaders had been strained in the lead-up to the summit over disagreements on Iran policy and other contentious issues, China is widely seen as a unifying point for the bloc, according to Cédric Dupont, an international politics specialist at the Geneva Graduate Institute. “They agree on the same thing, you know: China is a problem,” Dupont explained.

For its part, Beijing has watched G7 developments with open caution. Historically, the Chinese government has criticized the bloc as an outdated Cold War-era institution designed to advance Western ideological interests in a divided world. But in a statement provided to the Associated Press ahead of the Evian summit, China’s Foreign Ministry struck a more measured tone, saying “the G7 should serve as a catalyst for solidarity and cooperation rather than an amplifier of division and confrontation.”

Beijing-based analyst Wang Zichen noted that China’s wariness stems from the bloc’s inherent alignment with U.S.-led Western power. “Beijing is wary of the G7 because it sees the group as structurally aligned with U.S.-led Western power, and increasingly as a venue where China is discussed as a challenge or threat,” Wang said. Even so, China cannot dismiss the G7’s influence: “China recognizes that the G7 still represents a very significant concentration of economic, technological, military and financial power,” he added.

Beyond the democracy requirement, analysts argue that admitting China would irrevocably fracture the G7’s internal cohesion. Beijing’s authoritarian political system, core national interests and policy positions on flashpoints including Russia’s war in Ukraine and Iran’s nuclear program are fundamentally misaligned with those of Western G7 democracies. Even more, analysts warn Chinese membership could split long-standing alliances within the bloc, as individual nations could be tempted to strike separate side deals with Beijing to secure favorable terms on trade, critical minerals, technology and other key issues.

“China inside would indeed be a Trojan horse,” Kirton said. “With a Chinese leader at the table, individual members might be tempted to break G7 ranks to secure special favors from him on the economic, critical minerals, digital technology and other issues they address.”

Chris Alden, an international relations expert at the London School of Economics and Political Science, echoed that assessment, saying adding China “would make it very difficult for it [the G7] to function.”

The bad experience of Russia’s brief membership also serves as a major warning for G7 leaders. The bloc’s last expansion, which added Russia as a full member in 1998, ended in acrimony: the G7 froze Russia out after Vladimir Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that foreshadowed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While Trump argued last year that excluding Russia was “a very big mistake,” the experience convinced most other G7 leaders that they should never again allow a non-democratic power to join their fully democratic bloc.

Associated Press writers Ken Moritsugu and E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed reporting to this article.

A major diplomatic development over the end of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran has erupted into conflicting timelines this weekend, after former US President Donald Trump announced that a long-negotiated peace agreement would be signed Sunday to reopen the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz. The waterway, one of the world’s most critical chokepoints for global oil trade, has been closed throughout the recent escalation that roiled regional security and sent shockwaves through global energy markets.

In a post shared to his Truth Social platform Saturday, Trump confirmed the deal’s purported timeline, stating that “The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL.” Alongside the framework for ending hostilities, Trump outlined a key nuclear provision: the United States will take control of Iran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium and permanently destroy the material. He detailed that once the region stabilizes, US B-2 stealth bombers will be deployed to extract and eliminate the nuclear material stored deep beneath fortified granite mountain sites, with downblending and disposal completed either in Iran or on US territory. Closing his statement, Trump extended an olive branch, saying “We look forward to working with Iran, and the entire Middle East, long into the future.” He also issued a veiled warning to Tehran over full implementation of the terms, noting “Hopefully, this process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly. If it doesn’t, we have the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again!”

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif echoed optimism around the negotiations, announcing Saturday that Islamabad is prepared to complete an electronic signing of the agreement within 24 hours, with follow-up technical negotiations scheduled to kick off next week. “We are closer to a peace deal than ever before … We are confident that this historic peace deal will form a strong foundation for lasting peace,” Sharif wrote on his official social media channels.

Despite the upbeat announcements from Washington and Islamabad, Iranian officials have pushed back directly on the Sunday signing timeline. Speaking to Iranian state media Saturday morning, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei stressed that the memorandum of understanding would not be signed the following day, urging caution over premature timeline announcements. “We will have to wait and see about the exact date of the signing of the memorandum of understanding, although it will not be tomorrow,” Baghaei was quoted as saying. “The possibility of this happening in the coming days cannot be ruled out.”

The conflicting statements come following nearly a week of intense armed conflict between Iran, Israel and the United States, the most severe escalation of tensions between the three parties since a ceasefire was reached in April. Just two days prior, on Thursday, Trump ramped up pressure on Iran by threatening to seize the country’s Kharg Island oil export terminal and launch a new round of military strikes. Within hours, he announced a sudden diplomatic breakthrough, claiming that a draft agreement had already been “approved” by “the highest level of Iranian leadership.”

A growing cross-party political movement in the United Kingdom is pushing to block a controversial upcoming real estate event that promotes land sales in illegally occupied Palestinian territories, with nearly 100 members of both the House of Commons and House of Lords throwing their weight behind the campaign.

Planned for this Sunday in London, the privately organized Great Israeli Real Estate Event has drawn fierce backlash for its core business: marketing plots and properties built in Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem—all of which are classified as illegal under long-standing international law. Notably, event organizers have deliberately hidden the venue from public view, fueling further criticism over the opaque nature of the gathering.

The push to cancel the event gained public traction Friday, when Andy McDonald, Labour MP for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East, shared an open letter to the UK government on the social platform X. In his post, McDonald emphasized that the British government has a clear opening to meet its binding international legal obligations by stopping the event, arguing that allowing it to go forward would amount to complicity in Israel’s unlawful occupation of Palestinian land.

The joint letter, addressed to newly appointed Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, frames the event as an integral part of Israel’s decades-long colonial expansion project. It notes that the event enables the sale of land forcibly seized from displaced Palestinian families, while millions of Palestinian refugees who were displaced from their land during the founding of Israel—and their descendants—remain barred from exercising their internationally recognized right of return to their original properties.

Top political figures across multiple UK parties have lined up to back the cancellation call, including Green Party leader Zack Polanski and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, both of whom confirmed to independent outlet Middle East Eye that they believe the secretive event should be fully banned. London’s Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan has also publicly condemned the gathering, stating he opposes any effort to market property in illegal West Bank settlements and that he shares deep concerns about the event being hosted in the capital.

Legal advocacy groups have already escalated the matter to law enforcement: Middle East Eye has confirmed that groups have asked London’s Metropolitan Police Service to investigate whether the event can be blocked under a Serious Crime Prevention Order. Earlier reporting from the outlet also uncovered concrete links between participating firms and enterprises that operate exclusively in illegal settlements.

Earlier this week, Emanuel Vatari, CEO of the Emanuel Group—one of the event’s lead sponsors—publicly posted a full list of participating companies to his Facebook page. Among the named firms is Harey Zahav, an Israeli property developer that openly advertises residential units in Negohot, an illegal Israeli settlement located in the southern Hebron Hills of the occupied West Bank. Also on the list is the Meshulam Levinstein Group, a multi-disciplinary engineering, construction and real estate conglomerate that has built both residential and commercial developments in illegal settlements across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.

This is not the first time the Great Israeli Real Estate Event has sparked controversy. Last month, U.S.-based outlet The Intercept reported that during a previous iteration of the event held in New York City, multiple vendors were advertising land sales in Kfar Eldad, Karnei Shomron, and other illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

Amnesty International UK has added its voice to the campaign, calling on the UK government to take immediate action to block the gathering from taking place on British soil earlier this week. A recent Amnesty International report documents that the current Israeli government has expanded access to gun licenses for civilian settlers, increased state funding for illegal settlements, and accelerated both the construction of new settlement units and the formal legalization of unauthorized outposts—settlements built even in violation of Israeli domestic law, which the government has increasingly retroactively legalized. The international community has repeatedly confirmed that all Israeli settlements, outposts, and commercial activities in occupied Palestinian territories violate the Fourth Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law.

Critics warn that allowing the event to proceed in London would place the United Kingdom in violation of its own international legal obligations, and could open the country to accusations of complicity in potential war crimes linked to Israel’s prolonged occupation and settlement expansion.