G7 leaders on Wednesday hailed the US-Iran deal to end the Middle East war as a “historic opportunity” and agreed to increase pressure on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, ahead of an unusual summit session with AI bosses to discuss online security.

The three-day meeting of the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States has focused intensely on US President Donald Trump’s deal to end the war with Iran and efforts to pressure Russia into brokering peace with Ukraine.

France, whose President Emmanuel Macron is chairing the G7, published a communique overnight that said all the leaders had agreed on key geopolitical issues.

Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran, to be signed in Switzerland on Friday, “provides an historic opportunity to prevent Iran from acquiring any nuclear weapon and tackling the threats related to its regional and ballistic activities”, it said.

A multinational force led by France and Britain “can play an important role to facilitate the resumption of maritime traffic” in the Strait of Hormuz, where shipping has been severely restricted in the conflict, it added.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, speaking before the third day got underway, said there was “a likelihood that this memorandum of understanding agreement could be a game-changer”.

As well as increasing the supply of air defense equipment to Ukraine four years into the war launched by Russia, the leaders agreed to “increase the pressure on the Russian war economy” by strengthening sanctions, including on the oil and gas sectors.

“We consider this the right moment to proceed with additional measures” now that the Strait of Hormuz is reopening in the wake of Trump’s Iran deal, the statement said.

At a lunch on Wednesday the digital sphere will take center stage, with some European G7 members wanting more security in moves that have irked the United States.

Sam Altman, head of artificial intelligence giant OpenAI, Anthropic chief Dario Amodei, the founder of Google’s AI lab DeepMind Demis Hassabis, and Arthur Mensch of their European rival Mistral AI will attend.

The discussion at the G7 will focus on how to “improve cyber security and protect our children and our democracies”, Macron said in an Instagram video ahead of the summit. AFP