By Gram Slattery

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Pentagon officials sat down with a group of European diplomats in late August and delivered a stern message: The U.S. planned to cut off some security assistance to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all NATO members bordering Russia.

More broadly, Pentagon official David Baker told the group, according to an official with direct knowledge of the comments, Europe needed to be less dependent on the U.S. Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. military would be shifting its attention to other priorities, like defense of the homeland.

DUBAI (Reuters) -President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that Iran would overcome any reimposition of sanctions through a so-called "snapback" process, after the U.N. Security Council voted not to permanently lift sanctions on Tehran.

"Through the 'snapback' they block the road, but it is the brains and the thoughts that open or build the road," Pezeshkian said in remarks carried by state television.

VIENNA (Reuters) -Austrian oil, gas and chemicals group OMV has fired an executive over allegations of spying for Russia and a Russian diplomat has been summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Vienna as a result of the affair, news magazine Profil reported.

Profil magazine said the OMV employee allegedly attracted attention through meetings with a Russian diplomat suspected by Western intelligence services of being an agent of Russia's domestic intelligence service FSB.

The director of Al-Shifa hospital was on duty Saturday marshalling the facility's response to Israel's assault on Gaza City when two victims killed in a strike were delivered to the ward: his brother and his sister-in-law.

"I was shocked and devastated to see the bodies of my brother and his wife," said Mohammed Abu Salmiya, who was working in the emergency department of the territory's main hospital at the time.

French President Emmanuel Macron scored a major diplomatic coup by declaring his intention to recognise a Palestinian state, but the move risks drawing bitter retaliation from Israel while not providing concrete benefits to the Palestinians, analysts and sources say.

An elderly British couple released by the Taliban authorities after almost eight months in detention in Afghanistan arrived back in the UK on Saturday, telling the press that they feared "we would never be released".

Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife Barbie, 76, arrived on a flight from the Qatari capital Doha, where they had stayed for medical checks following their release on Friday.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told AFP Friday the world should not be "intimidated" by Israel and its creeping annexation of the occupied West Bank.

In an interview at UN headquarters in New York, he also called for more ambitious climate action saying that efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial levels were at risk of "collapsing."

Guterres spoke to AFP ahead of the UN's signature high-level week at which 10 countries will recognize a Palestinian state, according to France -- over fierce Israeli objections.

By Christian Martinez

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he was speaking with Afghanistan about regaining control of the Bagram air base.

"We should have never given it up," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

The comments come a day after Trump, in a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said the United States sought to regain control of the base used by American forces following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told AFP Friday that the world should not be "intimidated" by Israel as it presses its devastating Gaza war and pursues a "creeping" West Bank occupation.

Israel has reportedly threatened to annex the West Bank if Western nations press ahead with recognizing a Palestinian state at next week's UN high-level gathering in New York.

LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal will recognize a Palestinian state on Sunday, the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Friday.

The Official Declaration of Recognition will take place even before next week's High-Level Conference, it added.

Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel already said this week that the country was considering the recognisition of a Palestinian state during a visit to the UK.