Iran’s top envoys in Qatar to discuss potential deal to end war

DUBAI – Iran’s top negotiator and its foreign minister were in Doha for talks with Qatar’s Prime Minister on a potential deal with the United States to end the three-month-old war, an official briefed on the visit said on May 25.

This comes after Iran and the US played down hopes of an imminent breakthrough.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in New Delhi that the US would give diplomacy every chance to succeed before considering whether to deal with Iran in “another way”.

There was a “pretty solid thing on the table in terms of their ability to open up the strait, get the strait open, enter into a very real, significant, time-limited negotiation on the nuclear matter, and hopefully we can pull it off”, Mr Rubio said, referring to the Strait of Hormuz.

In a lengthy post on Truth Social on May 25, US President Donald Trump said talks with Iran were going “nicely”, but warned of fresh attacks if they failed. It “will only be a great deal for all, or no deal at all”, he wrote.

In his post, he urged more Arab and Muslim states to sign up to the Abraham Accords, which were brokered during Mr Trump’s first term in office and aim to normalise ties between Arab and other Muslim-majority states and Israel.

He said Saudi Arabia and Qatar should immediately sign up and everyone else should follow suit, calling his request mandatory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr Trump’s post.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in a weekly briefing on May 25 that a conclusion had been reached on many topics, but that did not mean “we’re close to signing an agreement”.

The official briefed on the Iranians’ Doha visit said the discussions were focused primarily on the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, while the country’s central bank governor is also among the delegation to discuss the potential release of frozen Iranian funds as part of a final deal.

Mr Baghaei said the potential memorandum of understanding contains 14 points and is focused on ending the war and the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, in exchange for Iran taking steps to ensure safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

He said the talks were not yet focusing on nuclear issues, however, which will be negotiated over a 60-day period if the framework accord is agreed on.

Mr Trump has said his key aim in the war is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon with its highly enriched uranium. Tehran has consistently denied it has any plans to do so.

As efforts to reach a deal continued, Iranian news agencies reported the military had downed a “hostile” stealth drone using a new air defence system, without indicating where it had come from.

“This is a sign from us that no more stealth drones can penetrate the skies of the Persian Gulf,” Fars quoted unnamed officials as saying.

Sticking points

Mr Baghaei said the potential accord contained no specific details on management of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied gas usually flows.

Iran will not charge tolls for ships to pass through, he said.

However, he added that there would be a cost for services offered, such as navigation and steps to protect the environment, under a protocol to be agreed with Oman, which shares the opposite shore of the waterway.

The strait has been effectively closed since the US and Israel first launched strikes on Iran on Feb 28, with only a handful of vessels passing through compared with about 125 to 140 daily before the conflict.

Iran’s state TV said on May 25 that 32 vessels and five oil tankers passed through the strait in the past 24 hours with the authorisation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval forces, and it reiterated that no vessel would be allowed to transit without coordination with the IRGC.

The energy crisis due to the Hormuz stand-off has caused a spike in oil prices and driven up the costs of fuel, fertiliser and food.

Oil prices fell more than 4 per cent to two-week lows on May 25 on optimism that the US and Iran might be moving closer to a deal.

The two sides remain at odds on several difficult issues, however, such as Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Israel’s war in Lebanon with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia, as well as Tehran’s demands for the lifting of sanctions and the release of tens of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen in foreign banks.

Mr Trump, whose approval ratings have been hit by the war’s impact on US energy prices, and who has faced congressional efforts to curb his war powers, has repeatedly played up the prospect of a deal to end the war.

Separately, two sources said Mr Netanyahu has told his confidants that Israel now has little ability to influence Mr Trump’s decision-making over the Iran conflict. REUTERS