Pakistan and Qatar reported signs of progress toward agreements involving Iran and the United States on Tuesday, even as fresh attacks on commercial shipping underscored the continuing danger across the Gulf of Oman and Red Sea.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Pakistan said Tuesday that Washington and Tehran appear to be moving closer to an agreement, while Qatar reported that separate negotiations involving Iran and Oman over the Strait of Hormuz have reached an advanced stage.
The diplomatic movement offered renewed prospects for easing a standoff that has effectively blocked the strategically important waterway, which carried about one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas before the war.
Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told Bloomberg News that recent developments suggest negotiations are again moving toward an understanding.
“things are shaping up again in favor of a peace arrangement or a deal,” Asif said.
“The signals in the last two three days are that we are close to some sort of an arrangement.”
Pakistan and Qatar have served as the principal mediators in the conflict, which began after U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28 and has killed thousands of people, primarily in Iran and Lebanon.
Iran has retaliated by striking U.S. assets and infrastructure in Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met with Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi in Tehran on Tuesday, according to Araqchi’s Telegram channel. No additional details about the meeting were provided.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman separately said during a Tuesday briefing that discussions between Oman and Iran over management of the Strait of Hormuz were at an advanced stage.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Public Relations Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The latest diplomatic signals followed several days of uncertainty over whether Tehran and Washington could resolve their competing demands.
Iran said Sunday that it was approaching a final agreement with Oman to establish new shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between the two countries.
Tehran cautioned, however, that a shipping agreement alone would not result in reopening the waterway unless Washington also accepted several Iranian conditions.
Those demands largely reflected provisions contained in a June memorandum of understanding intended to end the conflict, including compensation, an end to sanctions and an end to military threats.
Araqchi said Sunday that Iran and the United States were not negotiating directly but were exchanging messages through intermediaries.
President Donald Trump added his own compensation demand Monday night, raising the prospect that the two countries remained far apart despite the renewed diplomatic activity.
“We’re going to ask for money for the damage they’ve done over a 50-year period,” Trump said at the White House, saying any payments should account for deaths involving both civilian demonstrators and American forces in the region.
“So if there’s damages to be paid, I think Iran should pay those damages,” Trump said.
Oil prices declined Tuesday after earlier reaching a one-week high, although prices remained significantly above their levels before the war.
At the same time, new attacks on commercial vessels demonstrated that maritime security remains unstable even as negotiations continue.
Yemen’s Transport Ministry said four crew members were killed Tuesday in a suspected attack by Iran-backed Houthi forces against the Egyptian-owned cargo vessel Tihamah in the Bab el-Mandeb strait.
If confirmed as a Houthi attack, the deaths would be the first fatalities from a Houthi strike on commercial shipping since the Iran war began.
The Houthis had not claimed responsibility for the incident.
A second vessel, a container ship sailing through the Gulf of Oman, was struck by a missile off Pakistan in what sources described as a suspected U.S. attack.
The Wall Street Journal reported that a U.S. official said an American military helicopter struck the vessel after its crew ignored warnings from personnel enforcing the naval blockade of Iranian ports.
The United States initially announced the blockade against shipping attempting to reach Iran’s ports in April. Washington imposed it again in July after the June peace agreement collapsed.
The Houthis added another layer to the regional maritime confrontation on July 20 when they declared an embargo against Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, citing what they characterized as a Saudi siege of Yemen.
Saudi Arabia denies that Yemen is under siege.
The prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz has become one of the central pressure points of the war.
A months-long U.S. military campaign, including two weeks of strikes during July, has not ended Iran’s ability to restrict passage through the strait.
Trump has nevertheless said the waterway is open and asserted that the “only one that has control of the Strait of Hormuz right now is the United States Navy.”
The president is also facing domestic political pressure to bring the conflict to an end before the midterm elections.
U.S. polling cited in the supplied material shows the war is deeply unpopular with American voters, while elevated gasoline prices have become a significant concern as Republicans face the possibility of substantial electoral losses.
Against that backdrop, the latest statements from Pakistan and Qatar suggest mediation remains active despite the competing reparations demands, stalled negotiations and continued attacks on vessels across regional waters.
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