Iran's foreign ministry has summoned the British and German envoys over their calls to extend the mandate of a U.N. fact-finding mission investigating mass protests in 2022, local media reported Thursday.

A French citizen imprisoned in Iran for over 880 days has been freed and is back home, as was another French citizen held under house arrest in Tehran, French officials said Thursday. Their liberation came as France and the rest of Europe are trying to jumpstart talks with Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.

U.S. President Donald Trump has sent a letter to Iran's 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seeking negotiations. Trump is also pressuring Tehran over its support of Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels as the American military carries out an intense new campaign of airstrikes targeting the group.

Finland is named the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row, according to the World Happiness Report 2025 published Thursday.

Other Nordic countries are also once again at the top of the happiness rankings in the annual report published by the Wellbeing Research Center at the University of Oxford. Besides Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden remain the top four and in the same order.

The Kremlin said Thursday that the next U.S.-Russia talks could take place on Sunday or early next week, as Washington is also due to hold talks with Kyiv in the coming days.

"It may not be Sunday itself, the nuances are being agreed. It could be the start, the very start, of next week," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Thursday that a recent letter sent by U.S. President Donald Trump urging new nuclear talks was "actually more of a threat", and that Tehran would respond soon.

Araghchi told Iranian state television that while the letter purported to present "opportunities", it was "actually more of a threat", adding that Iran was now studying its contents and would respond "in the coming days".

Russia's illegal seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine exactly 11 years ago on March 18, 2014, was quick and bloodless, but it sent Moscow's relations with the West into a downward spiral unseen since the Cold War.

It also paved the way for Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, during which Moscow annexed more land from the war-torn country.

President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed the path to a ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow on Wednesday, a day after the U.S. leader held similar talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Trump's call with Zelensky was about half the length of his call Tuesday, during which Putin agreed not to target Ukraine's energy infrastructure but refused to back a full 30-day ceasefire.

Turkish police on Wednesday arrested Istanbul's mayor — a popular opposition leader and key rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — and several other prominent figures as part of investigations into alleged corruption and terror links. It was a dramatic escalation in an ongoing crackdown on the opposition and dissenting voices in Turkey.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said prosecutors issued warrants for the mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, and some 100 other people. Among those detained was Imamoglu's close aide, Murat Ongun.

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during a lengthy call Tuesday to an immediate pause in strikes against energy infrastructure in the Ukraine war, but the Russian leader stopped short of backing a broader 30-day pause in fighting that the U.S. administration is pressing for.

The White House described it as the first step in a "movement to peace" that it hopes will include a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea and eventually a full and lasting end to the fighting. But there was no indication that Putin has backed away from his conditions for a prospective peace deal, which are fiercely opposed by Kyiv. And shortly after the call ended, air raid alerts sounded in Kyiv, followed by explosions in the city. Local officials urged people to seek shelter.

A phone call between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin over a potential ceasefire in Ukraine has started and was going "well," the White House said Tuesday.

The call began at 1400 GMT and so far had continued almost an hour, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino said on X. "The call is going well, and still in progress," he said.