The European Union will increase its financial support for the Palestinian Authority with a three-year package worth around 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion), the European Commissioner responsible for the Middle East told Reuters in an interview.

Dubravka Suica, the European Commissioner for the Mediterranean, said the financial support would go hand in hand with reforms of the Palestinian Authority, which has been accused by critics of corruption and bad governance.

“We want them to reform themselves because without reforming, they won’t be strong enough and credible in order to be an interlocutor, not for only for us, but an interlocutor also for Israel,” Suica said.

The commissioner’s remarks came ahead of a first “high-level political dialogue” between European Union foreign ministers and senior Palestinian officials including Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa in Luxembourg on Monday.

The EU is the biggest donor to the Palestinians and EU officials hope the Palestinian Authority, which runs the West Bank, may also one day take responsibility for Gaza after the war between Israel and Hamas militants comes to an end, Reuters reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, however, has so far rejected the idea of handing over Gaza to the PA and shunned the EU’s broader aim of a two-state solution, which would include the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Suica said 620 million euros would go to financial support and reform of the PA, 576 million euros to “resilience and recovery” of the West Bank and Gaza and 400 million euros would come in loans from the European Investment Bank, subject to the approval of its governing body, Reuters reported.

She said average EU support for the PA had amounted to about 400 million euros over the past 12 years.

“We are investing now in a credible manner in the Palestinian Authority,” Suica said.

I think that the United States Steel one of the great companies of the world should remain in our country.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine may be going OK, but “there’s a point at which you just have to either put up or shut up.”

Trump made the comment to reporters a day after he showed frustration with Russia and told it to “get moving” on reaching a deal.

“I think Ukraine-Russia might be going OK, and you’re going to be finding out pretty soon,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One, while adding:

“There’s a point at which you just have to either put up or shut up and we’ll see what happens, but I think it’s going fine.”

On Friday, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the search for a peace deal.

The talks came at a time when U.S.-Russia dialogue aimed at agreeing a ceasefire ahead of a possible peace deal to end the war appeared to have stalled over disagreements around conditions for a full pause in hostilities.

Trump has shown signs of losing patience and has spoken of imposing secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil if he feels Moscow is dragging its feet on a deal.

Earlier on Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised Trump for what he said was a better understanding of the Ukraine conflict than any other Western leader.

“When we speak about eliminating root causes of any conflict, including the Ukrainian conflict, this is the only way to resolve the problem and to establish long-lasting peace. Remove root causes,” Lavrov said at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in southern Turkey.

“President Trump was the first and so far, I think, almost the only one among the Western leaders who repeatedly, with conviction, several times stated that it was a huge mistake to pull Ukraine into NATO. And this is one of the root causes which we quoted so many times.”

Putin, who launched Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has long cast Ukraine’s tilt to the West, including its desire to join NATO, as a threat to Russia.

Commenting on an agreement between Ukraine and Russia to pause strikes on each other’s energy facilities, Lavrov said that Moscow has been keeping its word and accused Kyiv of striking Russian energy infrastructure almost every day.

“I gave to our colleagues from Turkey, to (Foreign) Minister (Hakan) Fidan, what we gave to the Americans, to the U.N., to the OSCE – the list of facts listing the attacks by Ukraine during the last three weeks against Russian energy infrastructure.”

Ukraine has made similar accusations against Russia since the U.S.-backed moratorium was approved.

President Donald Trump wants Iran to know that there will be “all hell to pay” if it does not abandon its nuclear program, his press secretary told reporters on Friday ahead of talks on Saturday between U.S. and Iranian delegations.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s “ultimate objective is to ensure that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon” and that Trump believes in diplomacy, but that “all options are on the table” if diplomatic efforts fail, Reuters reported.

“But he’s made it very clear to the Iranians, and his national security team will as well, that all options are on the table, and Iran has a choice to make. You can agree to President Trump’s demand, or there will be all hell to pay, and that’s how the president feels. He feels very strongly about it,” Leavitt said.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is set for talks on Saturday with an Iranian delegation in Oman. Iranian state media said Iran would be represented by Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi as intermediary.

Trump in February restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, which includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero, in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He said earlier this week that if the talks are unsuccessful, “Iran is going to be in great danger.”