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WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) – The White House will step up its engagement with U.S. lawmakers trying to strike a bipartisan deal that would provide military aid for Ukraine and Israel while tightening U.S. border security, a Democratic senator said on Sunday.

Republicans have insisted that additional funding for Ukraine must be paired with major U.S. border security changes but a bipartisan group of senators trying to broker a compromise have made little progress with less than a week before the U.S. Congress leaves for a Christmas break.

“The White House is going to get more engaged this week,” Senator Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator, said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

Murphy said it was important to know if Democratic President Joe Biden would sign any prospective deal.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden, who is seeking reelection in 2024, has struggled with record numbers of migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Republicans have criticized Biden for rolling back some restrictive policies of former President Donald Trump, currently the leading candidate for his party’s nomination.

Reuters reported last week that the Biden administration was open to new limits on U.S. asylum as part of a deal to secure funding for allies Ukraine and Israel.

Murphy said the current border security demands by Republicans were “unreasonable” and that they were “playing games with the security of the world” by linking the military aid to U.S. border security measures.

Some Republicans have pushed for border provisions that would allow migrants crossing the border illegally to be quickly deported without the chance to seek U.S. asylum. They have also called for greatly scaling back Biden programs that have allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter lawfully.

Senator James Lankford, a Republican member of the group working on a border compromise, said the U.S. border was “literally spiraling out of control” with 12,000 migrants crossing illegally in a single day last week.

Speaking on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Lankford declined to detail what policy changes he had proposed but said Congress needed to take steps “to actually begin to control the border.”

Republican Senator J.D. Vance told CNN’s “State of the Union” program that he opposes aid to Ukraine, saying it is “functionally destroyed as a country” that needs to end the war through negotiations with Russia.

“What’s in America’s best interest is to accept Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians, and we need to bring this war to a close,” Vance said.

Shalanda Young, director of the White House budget office, said on CBS News that failing to aid Ukraine could encourage Russia to expand the conflict to other U.S. allies in Europe.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Iranian authorities have accused a Swedish EU diplomat, held in a Tehran prison for more than 600 days, of conspiring with Iran’s arch-enemy Israel, the judiciary said Sunday (10 December).

“Johan Floderus is accused of extensive measures against the security of the country, extensive intelligence cooperation with the Zionist regime and corruption on earth,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency said.

Corruption on earth is one of Iran’s most serious offences and carries a maximum penalty of death.

Floderus, 33, was arrested on 17 April 2022 at Tehran airport as he was returning to Iran from a trip with friends.

The Swede, who works for the European Union diplomatic service, is being held in Tehran’s Evin prison.

His arrest came while an Iranian national, Hamid Noury, was being tried in Sweden over the mass executions of dissidents in Tehran in 1988 – ultimately receiving a life sentence in July 2022.

The Court of Appeals in Sweden is expected to announce a verdict in the case on 19 December.

Mizan published photos of a handcuffed Floderus, who is being held in Tehran’s Evin Prison, appearing before judges in a pale blue prison uniform as the charges were read.

The prosecution claimed Floderus had gathered information on Iran’s “nuclear and enrichment programmes”, carried out “subversive projects” for the benefit of Israel and established a network of “agents of the Swedish

intelligence service”.

It further claimed he was involved in “intelligence cooperation and communication with the European Union” and exiled opposition group, the People’s Mujahedin (MEK), according to Mizan.

The next date of the trial was not yet known.

EU’s top foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called Sunday for his immediate release, saying “there are absolutely no grounds for keeping Johan Floderus in detention.”

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom added: “There is no basis whatsoever for keeping Johan Floderus in detention, let alone bringing him to trial.”

Other prisoners

Tehran-Stockholm ties soured after the execution in May of Iranian-Swedish dissident Habib Chaab, convicted of “corruption on earth” after being vanished during a visit to Turkey in 2020.

Academic Ahmadreza Djalali, another Iranian-Swede, was arrested in Iran in 2016 and sentenced to death on espionage charges. He remains under threat of execution.

Several other Europeans are detained in Iran, including four French citizens.

One of them, Louis Arnaud, was sentenced in November to five years in prison for propaganda and endangering the security of the Iranian state.

Iran’s relations with the EU improved after a nuclear deal in 2015 that lifted sanctions and looked set to boost trade.

But they have worsened considerably since the US effectively scrapped the deal in 2018.

The EU has imposed new sanctions on Iran after accusing it of providing Russia with drones for use in the Ukraine war, which Tehran denies.

It also sanctioned Iran over its response to nationwide protests last year triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian-Kurdish woman arrested in September 2022 for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.

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