ISLAMABAD/JERUSALEM — US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the US was making progress in its efforts to negotiate an end to war with Iran, including winning an important concession from Tehran, while a source confirmed that Washington had sent Iran a 15-point settlement proposal.

Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House the US was talking to “the right people” in Iran in order to reach a deal to end hostilities, adding the Iranians wanted to reach a deal very badly.

“We’re in negotiations right now,” he said.

Tehran has denied that direct talks have taken place. Iran’s powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf on Monday dismissed such reports as “fake news.”

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Washington sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war in the Middle East. Israel’s Channel 12, quoting three sources, said the US was seeking a month-long ceasefire to discuss the 15-point plan.

A source familiar with the matter confirmed that the US had sent a plan to Iran but provided no further details.

The Israeli media outlet said the plan would include the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program, ceasing support for proxy groups, and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House that Iran had made a valuable concession related to non-nuclear energy and the Strait of Hormuz, although he did not elaborate.

Iran has told the United Nations Security Council and the International Maritime Organization that “non-hostile vessels” may transit the Strait of Hormuz if they coordinate with Iranian authorities, according to a note seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

Iran has effectively shut the waterway, where 20% of the world’s oil normally transits, since the US and Israel launched attacks four weeks ago, creating the worst energy supply shock in history and sending fuel prices soaring.

“It was a very big present, worth a tremendous amount of money,” Mr. Trump said in his comments on Iran, adding: “It was a very nice thing they did.”

But US, Israeli, and Iranian strikes continued and sources said Washington was preparing to send more troops to the region.

Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday that the US was expected to send thousands of soldiers from the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East.

The forces will add to the 50,000 US troops already in the region and accelerate Washington’s massive US military buildup there, fueling fears of a longer conflict.

Pakistan’s prime minister said on Tuesday that he was willing to host talks between the US and Iran on ending the war, a day after Mr. Trump postponed threats to bomb Iranian power plants, saying there had been “productive” talks.

In a post on X, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Pakistan fully supported ongoing efforts to pursue dialogue and was ready to host “meaningful and conclusive talks for a comprehensive settlement.”

A Pakistani government source said discussions on a meeting were at an advanced stage and if it did happen, “a big ‘if’,” it would take place within a week. Pakistan has long-standing ties to neighboring Iran’s Islamic Republic and has been building a relationship with Mr. Trump.

The US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28 after saying they had failed to make enough headway in talks aimed at ending Iran’s nuclear program, although mediator Oman said significant progress had been made. — Reuters

COPENHAGEN/NUUK — Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats were headed for their worst election outcome in over a century on Tuesday, as migration and welfare concerns obscured broad support for her defiant stance toward Washington over Greenland.

In power since 2019, Ms. Frederiksen, 48, had campaigned on a promise that her tough and tested leadership skills would help the Nordic nation of six million navigate a complex relationship with US President Donald Trump and the European response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

But on Tuesday she emerged bruised both from the left and the right at home, where the cost-of-living crisis has come to the front of voter concerns, observers said.

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS SEEN WINNING 38 SEATS
Ms. Frederiksen’s Social Democrats, the architects of Denmark’s cradle-to-grave welfare state, were seen winning 38 seats in the legislature, the Folketing, compared with 50 four years earlier.

Her chances of staying in power for a third term were not gone although coalition talks could take weeks.

“I’m ready to take on the responsibility,” she told supporters in the parliament building in central Copenhagen late into the night. “It will be difficult.”

Ms. Frederiksen sought to downplay the decline in her party’s popularity, which comes amid a wave of anti-incumbent sentiment globally and several external shocks.

“We’ve had to deal with war, we’ve been threatened by the American president and in those almost seven years we’ve gone down 4 percentage points, I think that’s okay,” she said.

Ms. Frederiksen’s left-wing bloc was seen winning 84 seats in parliament, in the 179-seat legislature, versus 77 for the right-leaning parties, projections by local media based on 100% of votes counted showed.

Many of her left-wing supporters appeared frustrated with an immigration policy they saw as too tough, while some on the right saw her too soft and untrustworthy on economic issues.

“She is between a rock and a hard place because the numbers are bad for her,” said Andreas Thyrring, a partner at Ulveman & Borsting public affairs advisory firm.

In Brussels, Ms. Frederiksen is widely respected for her clear line on Greenland and for her efforts to ramp up Denmark’s defence spending in the wake of the Ukraine conflict. But her negotiating style is seen by some as abrasive and many Danes sought change.

The vote was also being closely watched in Greenland, with many hoping it will be a chance for the territory to leverage Mr. Trump’s unprecedented desire to wield control over the Arctic island to wrangle concessions from its former colonial power in Copenhagen.

MIGRATION POLICY IN FOCUS
Underscoring the broad backlash against Ms. Frederiksen, support for the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, led by Morten Messerschmidt, surged to 9.1% with all votes counted according to public broadcaster DR, up nearly 7 percentage points compared to the last election.

Mr. Messerschmidt had campaigned on a pledge to ensure zero net migration of Muslims and to abolish petrol taxes as a measure to ease living costs.

“The fact that the Danish People’s Party has now tripled its support clearly shows that Danes are fed up with this and that there are a great many people who want a different direction for Denmark,” Mr. Messerschmidt said after exit polls were published.

The non-aligned Moderates party of Lars Lokke Rasmussen could hold the key to the next ruling coalition, some observers said, with the outgoing foreign minister calling on Ms. Frederiksen to drop her calls for a wealth tax.

“There is no hard-red majority to our left, and no hard-blue majority to our right,” Mr. Rasmussen said at his party’s election-night party in Copenhagen.

Ms. Frederiksen proposed the tax – at a modest rate of 0.5% aimed at funding education reform – to rebuild her leftist credentials that had been damaged by a coalition with the center-right.

She has also overseen one of the toughest approaches to migration in Europe, with refugee status temporary, conditional support and expectations of integration in society.

She also co-led a push by nine EU countries for easier expulsion of foreign criminals, and earlier this year proposed legislation to increase deportations.

The leader of the Liberal Party, Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen, said he was no longer interested in coalition rule with Ms. Frederiksen, underscoring complex talks ahead for her.

“The possibility is there, Lars!” Mr. Poulsen said in Copenhagen in an apparent nudge to Mr. Rasmussen. — Reuters

NEW YORK/MONTREAL — The National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday that a system which would have allowed a New York airport controller to track movement of aircraft and vehicles did not alert during a Sunday night collision between an Air Canada commercial jet and a truck that killed two pilots.

The NTSB, an independent safety agency, is leading the investigation into the fatal collision of the Air Canada Express CRJ-900 jet with a firetruck at LaGuardia Airport. The flight, operated by regional partner Jazz Aviation, had 72 passengers and four crew.

The truck, which was on its way to assist another plane that had reported an emergency, crossed the runway just nine seconds before the crash, according to the plane’s cockpit voice recorder.

“ASDE-X did not generate an alert due to the close proximity of vehicles merging and unmerging near the runway, resulting in the inability to create a track of high confidence,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters in New York.

ASDE-X, or the Airport Surface Detection Equipment Model X, is a surveillance system designed to help reduce runway incursions that allows air traffic controllers to track surface movement of aircraft and vehicles.

TRUCK LACKED TRANSPONDER
Ms. Homendy also said the truck did not have a transponder, unlike similar vehicles at other airports in the US The Federal Aviation Administration has encouraged airports to equip firetrucks with transponders because it makes the vehicles’ movement easier to track at busy airports.

She said it is unclear if an alerting technology would have prevented the incident since it happened so fast.

Air crashes typically are caused by multiple factors with the investigation’s goal to improve aviation safety and not assign blame.

US air safety experts have said communications between the plane ⁠that was landing, the controller and the trucks would be key areas of the investigation. The collision has raised questions about the controller’s workload and staffing at the busy New York airport.

The NTSB, which has sounded the alarm about close calls and runway incursions for years, last month found the deadly January 2025 mid-air collision of an American ​Airlines regional jet and an Army helicopter was caused in part because the high workload “degraded controller performance and situation awareness”.

Ms. Homendy said the tower had standard staffing for a Sunday night. She added that there were two controllers working in a glass-enclosed section of the airport’s traffic control tower.

Ms. Homendy said on Tuesday that the NTSB will interview the local controller who started at 10:45 p.m. ET after a shift change 15 minutes earlier and whose interactions with different planes and the truck were heard on liveatc.net. A separate controller in charge was providing clearances for departing aircraft.

It is not clear who was conducting the duties of ground controller, or assigning directions to airport vehicles.

Air traffic controllers make the decisions about when planes can land and take off, and when ground vehicles can enter runways. The controller who made the call for the Air Canada flight ​to land had been trying to find a gate for a separate United Airlines flight that complained of a bad odor, according to the recording.

The incident has raised questions about whether the controller was distracted by the United Airlines flight, which had declared an emergency.

“I would caution pointing fingers at controllers and saying distraction was involved,” she said. “This is a heavy workload environment.” — Reuters