UK PM woos EU with 'fair' citizenship offer

British Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday urged EU leaders to urgently set out plans to move forward with Brexit negotiations, in particular on the rights of European nationals, as they prepared to delay key trade talks until at least December.

Arriving for the two-day summit, May accepted that her 27 European Union counterparts were unlikely to agree that there has been enough progress on divorce issues to move on to a second phase, saying the meeting was intended to "take stock".

In a move to sway EU leaders on what is a key topic for them, May yesterday published an open letter to the three million EU citizens living in Britain promising they would not be asked to leave after Brexit in March 2019.

The EU agrees that of the three key separation issues at stake, citizens rights is the most advanced, but sticking points remain. Discussions on the bill Britain must pay to leave meanwhile are deadlocked and discussions on Northern Ireland still have far to go.

EU President Donald Tusk warned he did "not expect any kind of breakthrough", saying that while there had been "promising progress", London needed to come up with more concrete proposals.

EU leaders will discuss Brexit without her today morning.

The EU is to consider stepping up measures aimed at punishing North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes, according to a summit agreement seen by AFP yesterday.

The bloc blacklisted the North Korean army on Monday as part of a new round of sanctions that European powers hope will help force Kim Jong-Un's regime to the bargaining table. New measures approved by EU foreign ministers also included a complete ban on investment in the North, which carried out its sixth and most powerful nuclear test last month, and a total embargo on oil and petrol products.