Trump says Iran talks were 'very good'

US President Donald Trump hailed the progress on Wednesday of indirect talks between Iran and the United States, saying there had been "very good meetings" in Doha.

"As far as things are going, the denuclearization of Iran is moving along well. They've had very good meetings, and we'll see," Trump told reporters as he prepared to board his new Qatar-gifted Air Force One plane for a trip to North Dakota.

"We hit them very hard... but we're getting along very well," he said of the talks, which are aimed at quelling tensions following exchanges of fire between the two sides.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he was thrilled to make his first flight aboard his new Air Force One plane, thanking Qatar for the controversial gift of the luxury jet.

Trump said the United States "couldn't build a plane like this" -- despite the fact that the heavily modified Boeing 747-8 aircraft was originally made there. "To be honest with you, I'm excited about the first flight. Nobody's ever seen anything like it," Trump told journalists traveling with him, including an AFP photographer, ahead of a trip to North Dakota.

The 80-year-old president is due to attend an event at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library as part of celebrations for the 250th anniversary of American independence.

"They just completed it. They made it appropriate for a president, that means the security and all of the different bells and whistles they put on. Very complex stuff, but it's really quite something," Trump said at Joint Base Andrews near Washington.

Critics have raised a host of ethical, constitutional and security concerns about the gifting of an aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars by a foreign power like Qatar.

The wealthy Gulf emirate, which is also playing a key role as a mediator in talks between the US and Iran, donated the jet last year. It has since undergone major modifications and testing.

The first flight also comes just a day after Trump faced further ethical scrutiny over filings that showed he earned around $1.2 billion dollars from his family's cryptocurrency ventures in his first year back in power.

But Trump dismissed any suggestion of impropriety, saying the cost to US taxpayers of adapting the Qatari jet was "very little relative to what it would cost if we did it a different way."

"Frankly, we couldn't build a plane like this because we wouldn't be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollars," Trump told reporters.

Trump said he had asked the Emir of Qatar if he could use the plane but "he said 'no, no, I'd like to make a contribution to the country, so it was very nice."

The plane will serve as a stopgap until Boeing delivers two new purpose-built Air Force Ones, which are expected to be delivered in two years after a series of delays and cost overruns.

Trump has long been obsessed with replacing the aging current Air Force One fleet, although one of them appeared to be traveling as a backup for him on Wednesday.

US extends sanctions waiver of Serbia oil firm

The US has extended a temporary sanctions waiver for a Serbian oil firm, to allow more time for negotiations over the sale of its Russian-held stake, officials said Wednesday.

Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) has faced US sanctions since January 2025 as part of a crackdown on the Russian energy sector following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Washington is demanding that Gazprom Neft and its sister company, Intelligence, both subsidiaries of Russian energy giant Gazprom, sell their combined 56 percent stake as a condition for lifting sanctions.

The company has for months been negotiating a sale of the stake with Hungary's energy giant MOL, with the US repeatedly extending sanction waivers during the process.

The latest waiver granted by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control was due to expire at midnight on Wednesday.

"We have just been informed by OFAC that the operating license to resume work at NIS has been extended for another 30 days, until July 31," Serbia's Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic wrote on Instagram late Tuesday.

"The refinery in Pancevo continues to process crude oil, which is particularly significant in the global energy crisis," she said, referring to the country's sole oil-processing facility.

MOL on Wednesday confirmed that its licence to negotiate had also been extended until July 31.

Serbia remains a close Kremlin ally and one of the few European countries not to sanction Russia over its war against Ukraine.