American and Afghan Taliban officials have temporally paused ongoing peace talks in Qatar to consult with their respective leaderships before returning to the table on Saturday.

The United States has reaffirmed that it will maintain sanctions on Russia until it returns control of Crimea to Ukraine, nearly five years after Moscow annexed the peninsula. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Russia’s occupation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 has fueled “an escalation of Russian aggression.”

In front of a backdrop of American and North Korean flags as he shook hands with Kim Jong Un at the start of their second summit, U.S. President Donald Trump denied that he has walked back his pledge to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.